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SANTANGELO'S TRIAL 

FOR- 

LIBEL 

AGAINST 

SAMUEL Mc ROBERTS. 

A SENATOR OF THE UNITED STATES, FROM ILLINOIS. 



BEFORE THE 



COURT OF GENERAL SESSIONS, 



IN THB CITY OP NEW YOKE. 



1\ 



■'■'SV 



INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN BY MR. 0. de A. SANTANGELO 
TO HIS COUNSEL. 



NEW YORK. 



1842. 



o 



i-2 



J 7 



Gentlemen, 

However adverse the result of my approaching trial 
for LIBEL may be, I shall solely look upon it as a subject for 
a few additional pages to the history of my strange adven- 
tures. 

Yet I could not feel indifferent to the least judicial inci- 
dent, which may not prove fully creditable to my personal 
honor. Society, it may be said with much truth, does not 
always condemn what a magistrate condemns, nor is public 
opinion always subservient to the decisions of juries or courts. 
It is not less certain, however, that men, uninformed of the 
true facts, might easily be led into error by wrong judicial 
sentences silently acquiesced to. Nature and reason, on the 
other hand, order me to defend myself. I shall never consent, 
therefore, to have my person confounded with the common 
mass of trembling victims to tyrannical power and brutal 
force. Let me defend my person, my name, my honor, and 
all my natural and civil rights, to the utmost. Must I suc- 
cumb ? Well, I shall ; but not without being fully at peace 
with my own heart and mind. All that I aim at, is not to 
descend into the tomb a voluntary prey to inconsolable grief 
and dejecting opprobrium. I care but little for any other 
possible injury that human malice or folly can inflict on my 
septuagenary body or exhausted purse. Worldly misfortunes 
have no real terrors, in my opinion, whenever they can be 
courageously faced by honesty and innocence. 

But, although I have long since been initiated in the myste- 
ries of Themis, still, imperfectly acquainted with the English 
language, and in almost utter ignorance of the common law of 
this country, I could not, if abandoned to my own personal 
resources, flatter myself to give my defence all that vigor, of 



which I think it susceptible. These considerations have com- 
pelled me, Gentlemen, to have recourse to your professional 
and eiRcient assistance : and the complicated nature of the 
case, suggests the propriety of giving you as complete a view 
of it as now lies within my reach. 1 would convince you 
of the justice of my cause before you attempt to convince 
the Court where the cause shall have to be debated. Above 
all, I would call your serious attention to the immense 
eventual disparity of forces existing between my assail- 
ant and myself The contest is literally between a naked 
human frame and a man clothed in full armour, presenting al- 
together an invulnerable, impenetrable mass of iron. In 
fact, what is a naturalized citizen against a native, a stranger 
to all political parties against a 'protected partizan, a private for- 
saken individual against a Senator, shielded by the esprit de 
corps of numerous and powerful colleagues ? You, learned 
juristSj cannot be ignorant of all those inscrutable and 
resistless influences, by which the human heart is secretly 
and sovereignly mastered, notwithstanding the most dazzling 
external appearances, or illusive protestations of rigorous im- 
partiality and unshakeable uprightness. My only possible re- 
source seems, therefore, to be an appeal to the national hon- 
or of all parties, all corporations, all classes of native and 
adopted citizens, and, more especially, to the individual con- 
scientious integrity of those to whose judgment the law con- 
fides the decision of my case. 

I would likewise take the liberty of reminding you that 
juries — composed no doubt of excellent people, but common- 
ly not much versed in dialectical and legal sciences — em- 
brace, but too often, the opinion of those who speak the last 
to them, and that those who, amongst us, speak the last to 
them, are by no means the accused or his counsel, as in Con- 
tinental Europe, but the Attorney General and the Judge of 
the court. This fact renders it advisable for the accused, or 
his counsel, to foresee in his defence, and defeat beforehand 
all objections which might possibly be made by those whose 
daring eloquence or imposmg character could lead the jury 
to overlook the true merits of the defensive edifice. By 
the Code of Criminal Instruction of France, B. 11. Tit. 11. 
Art. 335, a reply to the defence is permitted both to the civil 



party and the Attorney General ; but "I' accuse ou son con- 
seil auront toujours la parole les derniers." This is a proper 
deference paid to the rights of man, and by such a procedure, 
the fate of the accused does not hang on a chance, which 
can so justly be compared to the drawing of a lottery. 

I will now come to the point. I shall begin by submitting 
to you a faithful copy of all such documents as I have at 
present prcemamSti^. and which seem necessary or useful to 
my defensive process. I shall expose, in continuation, for 
^ your better information, such ideas of the case as I have been 
~ able to conceive, and of which you will make, in your wisdom, 
the estimate you shall think proper. Such other proceedings 
as may take place before the Court of General Sessions, your 
professional action, the progress and final issue of the trial, to- 
gether with all such suitable observations as it may elicit, will 
form the subject of the Second Part of this writing, and the 
whole will be recorded by the press. The extraordinary fact of 
this being, in the whole course of my life, and at my age of sev. 
enty, myjlrst appearance before a criminal court in the char- 
acter of an accused person (as not even for mj political offences 
in Europe was I ever tried or heard inpvUic) must be made 
known in all its extent. I owe this innocent and honest satis, 
faction to my friends in both worlds, and to myself. 

Deign, Gentlemen, to accept the assurances of my respect- 
ful regard. 

Your most humble servant. 

Santangelo, 

Mid York, JYovember 1st. 1842. 



True copies of the original Documents, chronologically dis. 
posed, as quoted hi my "Instructions to my Counsel." 
touching my defence against the charge of " Libel" pre- 
ferred by Senator Samuel Mc Roberts before the Court of 
General Sessions, evincing the ftitility of his action, and 
vindicating my slandered character. 



NO. 1. 

Washington, Feb. 15th. 1842— Received from 0. de. A. Santangelo, 
Esq. two hundred dollars in full for his note due this day. 

Thos. p. Jones. 

This receipt was delivered on the 18th Feb., 1842, by D r. T. P. Jones, 
who had lent Mr. O. de A. Santangelo the sum of two hundred dollars 
for the term of four months, for which he received through me the in- 
terest of forty dollars, at five per cent, per month, besides a bonus of five 
dollars— in all, forty-five dollars. 

Eugene Plunkett. 

NO. 2. 

I hereby certify that on the 28th day of February 1842, I was inform- 
ed by Messrs. Robert Dyer & Co. Auctioneers, of the City of Washing- 
ton, that they had made sales of Mexican Scrip at public auction, as fol- 
lows : 

One Certificate for $500, sold to the Hon. James A. Pearce, of Mary- 
land, at 49 cents on the dollar — makiag the amount of $245,00. 

One Certificate for $500, sold to the Hon. Samuel Mc Roberts, of Il- 
linois, at 48 cents on the dollar, making the amount of $240,00. 

Both these Certificates belonged to the deceased Abraham Miller, and 
were sold by Mr. Rives, Editor of the Globe, executor of said Miller. 

Eugene Plunkett. 

NO° 3. 

I have bought of Mr. 0. de A. Santangelo, a certificate issued under 
the Mexican Convention, No. 1159, dated 26th of March 1842, signed 
by T. L. Smith, for two hundred dollars — but I agree that if he pays me 
fifty dollars within two months from this date, with uiterest at six per 
cent, per annum, that I will transfer him said certificate. 

April 6th, 1842. 

.Saml. Mc. Roberts. 



I have bought of Mr. Santangelo a Certificate issued under the trea- 
ty with Mexico, dated 26th Marcla 1842, for five hundred dollars, signed 
by T. L. Smith. 

If Mr. Santangelo pays me one hundred and twenty-five dollars, and 
interest, by the 6th of June next, I will transfer him said certificate. 

April 15, 1842. 

Saml. Mc Roberts. 



I have purchased of O. deA. Santangelo, a certificate issued under 
the Mexican Treaty, bemg No. 1121, dated March 26th, 1842, for the 
sum of one thousand dollars, signed by T. L. Smith. 

If Mr. Santangelo pays me the sum of two hundred and fifty-three 
dollars and fifty cents, on or before the sixth of June 1842, with interest 
at the rate of six per cent per annum, I will sell and transfer him said 
certificate. 

April £3, 1S42. 

Saml. Mc Roberts. 



If Mr. Santangelo has two notes of five hundred, they would be more 
convenient than one of a thousand. 

I am willing to purchase five hundred dollars this evening, at 25 cents 
to the dollar as before. 

(This note was received on the morning of the 28th of April, 1842, 
from Senator Mc Roberts.) 



I have bought of O. de A. Santangelo, a certificate issued under the 
treaty with Mexico, No. 1158, dated March 26th, 1842, and signed by 
T, L". Smith, for the sum of five hundred dollars. 

If Mr. Santangelo pays me one hundred and tweny-five dollars with 
interest, at the rate of six per cent per annum, on or before the 6th of 
June, 1842, I will sell and transfer to him said certificate. 

April 28th, 1842. 

Saml. Mc Roberts. 



T, P. Jones presents his respectful compUments to Mrs. de Santangelo, 
and with real regret informs her that a letter just received from New 
York, calling for an immediate payment of $500 will ^prevent him from 
making the proposed loan on the 1st of the month. T. P. J. giyes the 
earliest notice of this in his power, and hopes that the disappointment 
may not be attended by any serious inconvenience. 

Washington, May 26th, 1842. 



NO. 9. 

Copy— Washington, May 26th, 1842.— Dr. T. P. Jones— Sir- 
Relying on your positive promises, the promises of a gentleman, I shall 
indubitably lose $1650. Your notice of this morning comes much too 
late for me to hope for a remedy. You assured my wife and Mr. Plun- 
kett, several days ago, that you already had the greatest part of the 
money ready for the loan. The conditions were settled, and I confident- 
ly trusted on their fulfilment ; but it seems that Mr. Mc Roberts is more 
fortunate than myself and that I must be, as ever, the victim of untow- 
ard circumstances. This note is only an attempt to recall you to a sen- 
timent of honor ; if useless, I shall have to endure this new stroke of 
fate without repining : it will add a page to the volume of my misfor- 
tunes. — Respectfully, your obt. servant — Santangelo. — 

I certify that the above is a true copy of the letter handed to Mr. T. P. 
Jones, this day — Washington, May 26th, 1842. 



Eugene Plunkktt. 



NO. 10. 



Copy— Washington, May 26th, 1842.— Dr. T. P. Jones— Sir-- 
My note of this morning, in answer to yours of the same date, handed to 
you by my wife in company with Mr. Plunkett, has produced no effect. 
No satisfactory apology has been made on your part. Was the " imme- 
diate payment of $500," which you pretend to have been called upoa 
for, from New York, due or not ? If it was in virtue of previous en- 
gagements, of which you could not be ignorant, you ought not to 
have made any engagement with me, conscious of your inability to 
comply with it. If it was not, but is only a request of a recent date, 
you ought to have declined it for want of other means to enable you to 
keep yonr word to me. But you imagined you were dealing with a silly 
peasant just come from the country, wholly unacquainted with the in- 
trigues of a town usurer. 

You have wilfully and dishonorably broken a contract, thus causing 
me a sure loss of $1650 — Must I now engage a contest with a man des- 
titute of honor ? I could sue you for damages, but could I flatter myself 
with any success without suffering an expense often times the amount, 
which your treacherous hand snatches from my pocket ? 

I would, however, inform you that our Government, on which I 
have to call for all the losses its culpable inaction is causing to me and 
to all the claimants on Mexico, will be duly informed of this transaction 
of yours; and as all my communications with it on the subject are made 
public, you will appear in them in your true colours. I consider it, on the 
other hand, to be my duty to warn the public against dealing with an 
infamous scoundrel, a consummate liar, and a coward, worthy only of the 
lash of your obedient servant. — Santangelo. 

I certify the above is a true copy of a letter sent to J. P, Jones.— 
Washington, May 26th, 1842. 

EUOENE Pj.tJNKETT, 

2 



10 

NO. 11. 

This is a letter from Saniangelo to Mc Roberts dated Mayi27th, 1842, 
filed in the original documents at said No. 11,] and copied in full in 
Santangelo's Instructions to his Counsel. 

NO» 12. 

Letter from Mc Roberts to Santangelo, dated Washington, May 28th 
1842 — filed in the original documents at said No. 12, and copied in full 
in said Instructions. 

NO. 13. 

Letter from Santangelo to Mc Roberts dated Washington, June 1st 
1842, filed in the originals at No. 13, and copied in full in said Instruc- 
tions. 

NO. 14. 

Copy — To the President of the United 'States — Sir — From the 
accompanying copy of a letter which I have just addressed to the more 
honored than honorable Senator of the United States of America, Mr. 
Samuel Mc Roberts, you will perceive to what a degree of violence and 
distress the rights of your citizens wronged by Mexico, are now brought 
by your inexplicable inaction. Your most humble servant. — Santangelo. 
Washington, June 1st, 1842. 

I certify the above is a true copy of a letter sent to the President of 
the United States. Washington, June 1st, 1842. 



Eugene Plunkett. 



NO. 15. 



Copy. — To Hon. Willie P. Mangum, President of the Senate — 
Sir — I herewith enclose a copy of a note which I addressed yesterday 
to Senator Samuel Mc Roberts from Illinois, as you should know intus 
et in cute every one of the members of the Body, of which you are the 
head. 

I take this step, not from any hope of interference on your part be- 
tween that extremely honorable Pater Conscriptus and mj^self, for he 
would always prefer $1650 to your esteem. My object is to let you 
know that should I ever be obliged to chastise in some way the base 
covetousness of that miserable blackguard, this should not imply the 
slightest idea of disrespect on my part to your august Body. — With 
sentiment of high consideration, I have the honor to be, your most obe- 
dient servant — ^Santangelo. 

Washington, June 2d, 1842. 

I certify the above is a true copy of a note addressed to Hon. Willie 
P. Mangum — Washington, June 2d, 1842. 

Eugene Plunkett. 



11 

KO. 16. 

The original insulting and provoking letter, of seven written pages 
dated — Washington City, June 4th, 1842, wholly written by Samuel 
Mc Roberts, signed by him, addressed to O. de A. Santangelo — which 
letter was afterwards printed and inserted in full by said Mc Roberts 
in his libellous pamphlet published in "Washington, under date of the 9th 
of August 1842, entitled " Address of Mr. Mc Roberts of the Senate of 
the United States, in reply to a publication of O. de Santangelo," a 
copy of which pamphlet is annexed, under the letter B, to the Deposi- 
tion of Johnson K- Rodgers, taken by order of the Court of Sessions on 
the 10th of September, 1842 ; and another is filed amongst the docu- 
ments of the defendant, Santangelo, at No. 26. 

xro. 17. 

Letter from Mad. Santangelo to Senator Mc Roberts, dated Washing- 
ton, June 6th 1842 — filed in the original documents at No. 17, and co- 
pied in full in the Instructions of Mr. Santangelo to his Counsel. 

NO. 18. 

Obligation of Charles J. Nourse Esq. dated Washington, June 6th, 
1842 — filed amongst the originals at No. 18, and copied in full in said 
Instructions. 

liTO. 19. 

Another obligation of the same person under same date — filed in the 
originals at No. 19, and copied in full in said Instructions. 

I TSO. 20. 

Extract from the " Weekly Herald" of New York, of Saturday the 
18th of June 1842, page 308, column 3d under the head, " Washington, 
Monday Evening (which was the 13 th of June) proceedings in Con- 
gress &c." 

" A personal altercation took place in the Senate between Mc Ro- 
berts of Illinois, and Mr. Smith of Connecticut. Mr. Smith charged Mr. 
Mc Roberts with falsehood. The latter retorted with some spirit, but 
there is no danger of bloodshed. There will never be another fight in 
Congress. Recent events have shown that there is great economy of 
human life in the Chivalry of the present day." 

ZVO. 21. 

The original letter from Santangelo to Samuel Mc Roberts, dated 
Washmgton, D. C. June 30th, 1842, in refutation of the insulting and 
false statements made by the latter in his letter of the 4th June, before 



12 

mentioned— Avhich original letter was afterwards published by Mr. S, 
in his " Circular to the World," denounced as libellous by said Mc Ro- 
berts, and filed in Mr. Santangelo's documents under No. 25. 

To said letter is subjoined the following declaration : 

Washington, D. C. June 30th, 1822--I, the undersigned, do hereby 
certify and attest that the above letter, written on thirty-one pages of 
common letter paper, addressed to Samuel Mc Roberts, and signed 
" Santangelo," is identically the sfime which, at the request of the lat- 
ter, I have copied from his autograph — which was folded, sealed, 
superscribed, and delivered by me at the door of the Senate Chamber 
this morning at 9 o'clock ; and which, after having been unsealed and 
enveloped under a different cover, was returned to Mr. Santangelo, at 
or about 12 o'clock, without any answer. 

Eugene Plunkett. 
sro. 22. 

This is the cover in which Mr. Mc Roberts enveloped the letter of the 
30th of June 1 842, addressed to him by Mr. Santangelo, and by him 
(Mc Roberts) opened, and contemptuously returned to the latter, as 
stated by Mr. Plunkett in the proceeding document No. 21 . Said cover 
bears a superscription in blue ink written by Mc Roberts himself in the 
following terms : 

" 0. DE A. Santangelo— at Mrs. Gazaways' — Corner of lOthStreet — 
Washington City." 



ZUO. 23. 

Extract from a letter from James F. Haliday, foreman of Mr. Force's 
printing establishment in the city of Washington : " Washington, July 
1st 1842— Gen. Santangelo—The letter to Mc Roberts, which Mr. Plun- 
kett left with me to be printed, I have submitted to Mr. Force, and he 
requests me to say, that although he is desirous of accomodating you, 
it will be impossible for him for a week or two to put the work in the 
office, in as much as he has promised a small volume now in hand 
within a specified time, and it cannot be put aside ; and owing to the 
great delay in Congress making an appropriation for our work long 
since due, and the difficulty in collecting money elsewhere, he cannot 
increase the number of his hands, when he has no immediate resources 
to meet the expense &c. Very respectfully™ James F. Hahday." 

DC?" In confirmation of the above, see the affidavit of said James F. 
Haliday, of the 5th of Sept. last. Doc. No. 29. 



13 

XVO. 24, 

Extract from a letter from Mr. Eugene Plunkett to Mr. Santangelo, 
dated Washington, June 6th, 1842 — filed amongst the original documents 
at No. 24, and copied in full in Santangelo's Instructions to his Coun- 
sel. 

sro. 25. 

This is the pamphlet entitled " A Circular to the World," which Mr, 
Santangelo published in New York under date of the 26th July, 1842, 
and with his own signature, in which he refutes line by line, and word 
by word, the insulting letter addressed to him by Mc Roberts, dated the 
4th of June, which " Circular to the World," filed amongst Santangelo's 
documents at No. 25, forms the basis for his present prjpsecution for libel 
before the Court of General Sessions. 

Z70, 26, 

This is a pamphlet published by Samuel Mc Roberts in Washing- 
ton under his own name, and bearing date the 9th of August, 1842, en- 
titled " Address of Mr. Mc Roberts of the Senate of the United States, 
in reply to a publication of 0. de Santangelo" ; which pamphlet bears 
on its title page an anonymous note by the Publisher, containing the 
most defamatory insults and calunmies, and on its 3d page it is address- 
ed "To the Public." 

rro. 27. 

TO ALL MEN. 

A Pamphlet has made its appearance in the city of Washington un- 
der the title of " Address of Mr. Mc Roberts, of the Senate of the 
United States, in reply to a Publication of 0. De Santangelo." 

To this title is immediately subjoined, under the anonymous desig- 
nation of " Note by the Publisher," a calumnious denunciation, charging 
publicly " Santangelo" with defaming crimes " wholly new in this 
country ....!!!" 

On the second printed page of the Pamphlet, the " Address" appears 
made "To the Public." 

In his " Address" to the Public, Mc Roberts bravely involves in his 
slander Madame Santangelo, a perfect model of all social and domestic 
virtues, and Mr. Plunkett, a youth of 22 years of age, whose talents, 
morals, manners, point of honor and patriotism, would comma4d the 
respect of the universe. j^ 

The world will now be presented (in a document which shallTje sent 
to-morrow or next day to the printer) with a full incontrovertible evi- 
dence of Sabiuel Mc Roberts, and his absconding " Publisher," be- 
ing, if not two furious madmen, or mad desperadoes, incontestibly a 
couple of barefaced impostors, abject ruffians, cowardly felons, igno- 
rant slaves, exhibiting in their hideous persons such a complication of 



14 



nals of human wickedn«. Ar ,1, ■"?", ''''''™" P"™""' "> *e an- 
modem nations """"'"''""• " '^' "™mal records of all ancient and 

or'cven,'iS5 nTon^fTr"]; 'tSt"?*'^ ^ '=°T ^f J°""«' 
quences. i)e„5 «,L„' „; / ' .^^^o'^'*.^^ hand, regardless of all conse- 

/»».. i.. alw?;^ "waTaXw? aT^ «/rb™t 'sfc^ifr""'*'-" " "" 
He. York, August 20, 18«""° "' ^""^^"^ S.nt.noelo. 
3^0, 28, 
Dear Mada m, Washington, 3d Sept. 1842. 

.lte^T^S.Vant3eJ:dt;t=at/o?X'S '"'n >""■ '"" 
Session of that body, for the Hon Snm 17^7 ^l ^^"*^''' ^"""? the 
that it was regularly sent to hir* ^' ^"*'''''' of Illinoir, and 

Very respectfully, 

rp ,;r ,. '^•^•J'^HNSON, Proprietor of the Index 

To Mrs. Mary de Santangelo. Washington. 

NO. 29, 

^o'^'oalf^^^^^^^^^ on or about the 

ing establishment of Mr Pete? Fotpp . 1 ^^"?''''" '^^^ *^ ^^^ Print- 
Samuel Mc Roberts bykTS deTstrZTr'^'- 1""^^' ^^^^««««d to 
should be immediately prnVedanATnfK'T^^^ 
turned said letter to Mr SantnnL^ • u °" *^^ following day, I re- 
Mr.ForcewasdesirouftoaccoS^^^ ^^ »hat 

sible to put the woric in handTr . i ™' ''"' ^^^^ " ^""'^ beimpos- 
ise to finish, w Zi a sZJZ ? ^'^^ ^' ^T' ^'^ ^'^'^^""t of « Prom- 
which could notrpu^asS&c'Tnl^Trf ^^'^^ ^'»«» P^^ting, 
the letter addressed to SamnplSr' iJ ^""'^^^I ^^^^^^^ *nd a»es^ that 
tangelo in a pamph et ent^^^^^^^^ ^""^ P>^'^*^^^ by Mr. San- 

best of my knowledZ nnH K r r ^ Circular to the World," is to tlie 
above wriuen '° ^""^ ^"^'"^' ^ ''""^ ^^PY of the Manuscript le Uer 

James H. Haliday. 
Swotn and Subscribed before me, this 5,h day of September, 1842. 

--■ R- K. MoRSEtL, J. P. 



16 
NO. 30. 



,nJAi ^^"^^.^A^^a'^^S' delivered by printers m Washington, Georgetown, 
and Alexandria D. C.-affirming that the "Address" of Mc Roberts 
was not printed m their various printing offices-filed amongst the 
onginal documents at No. 30, and lettered A to J, inclusive. 

XfO. 31, 

'Georgetown, D. C, Sept. 6th, 1832. 

UnTt^.5??r;P^-^' " ^^^'^'^ ""L^': ^*= ^«b^««' °f the Senate of the 
wii» 1° T^P^5^.^°''J?,^h'''^*t^*''^«fO- deSantangelo;" was first 

ofSjirr^^°"^'^*"¥'''" ^^^- i" a reporter's box iA the House 
ot Kepresentatives, on Tuesday, August 16th, 1842. 

Henry Hardy. 

NO 32, 

Santangelo's «' Circular to all Men" dated August 26th, with the ad- 
dition of some lines addressed by him to the District Attorney and three 
members of the Grand Jury-filed in the original documents at No. 32, 
and copied m full m his Instructions to his Counsel. 

XrO. 33. 

Vfh'^fiTo^^S'^^^^^u^^-' pharlesFenderich, dated Washington, Sept. 
structiots '"^ ongmals at No. 33, and copied in full in said In- 

xro. 34. 

THE INDICTMENT. 

Copy— City and County of New York, ss: 

The Jurors of the People of the State of New York in and for the bo- 
dy ot the city and county of New York, upon their oath present that, 

Samuel Mc Roberts long before, and at the time of the writintr, 
prmting and publishmg of the false, scandalous, malicious and defa7m- 
<ory libels hereinafter mentioned, hath been a person of good name, fame 
credit and reputation, and as such hath for and during all the time afore- 
said been reputed, esteemed and respected by and amongst all good and 
SSW "^'""^"^ ^^^^ of New York, to whom he was in any wise 

*u'^°i ^^^ i^o^"^^ aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present, 
that the said Samuel Mc Roberts, before and at the time of the writing-, 
prmting and publishing of the/aZ5e, scandalous, malicious and defamato- 
ry libels hereinafter mentioned, was a Senator in the Congress of the 
United States, representing the State of Illinois in said Congress. 
And the Jurors aforesaid, upon their oatJi aforesaid, do further present, 



16 

that one Orazio de Attellis Santangelo, late of the First Ward of the 
City of New York ia the County of New York aforesaid, gentleman, 
well knowing the premises, but being a person of a wicked and mali- 
cious mind and disposition, and unlawfully, wickedly, and maliciously 
devising, contriving, and intending as much as in him lay, to injure, ag- 
grieve, and scandalize, vilify, and defame the said Samuel Mc Roberts 
and to provoke him the said Samuel Mc Roberts to commit a breach of 
the peace, on the twenty-sixth day of August in the year of our Lord 
one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, with force and akms &c. 
at the Ward, City, and County of New York aforesaid in his great ha- 
tred, malice, and ill-will, towards the said Samuel Mc Roberts, unlaw- 
fully and maliciously in a paper or pamphlet entitled " A Circular to 
the World," and addressed to said Samuel Mc Roberts, did compose, 
print and publish, and cause and procure to be composed, printed, and 
PUBLISHED of and concerning the said Samuel Mc Roberts a certain/a/ie, 
scandalous, malicious, and defamatory libel, containing therein in a cer- 
tain part thereof (amongst other things) the false, scandalous, malicious, 
defamatory and libellous loords and matter following of and concerning 
the said Samuel Mc Roberts, that is to say " Your" (meaning said Sam- 
uel Mc Roberts) " knavery notv appeared in my eyes (meaning the eyes of 
said Santangelo) " to be so eminently mean and dirty that /" (said San- 
tangelo meaning) "feared to become polluted by looking at you" (said 
Mc Roberts meaning) " with any other feeling than that of contempt." 
And in a certain other part of said libel there was and is contained these 
other /a/5e, scandalous, malicious, defamatory, and libellous words and 
matter, following of and concerning the said Samuel Mc Roberts, that 
is to say " True, I" (said Santangelo meaning) "am at a loss to gel a 
microscope fit to enable me to run after the flying-fighting, impercep* 
able insect" [meaning the said Samuel Mc Roberts] '* with which I" 
[said Santangelo meaning] " have to deal ; " but the idea of your name" 
[meaning the name of said Mc Roberts] " being connected, by one of 
those tvordly anomalies, for lohich no man can account, with the title of 
Senator of the United States, has given me" [said Santangelo meaning] 
" strength enough to overcome all difficulties. With a Samuel Mc Ro- 
berts half a dozen lashes on the face would soon settle the question, but 
with a Senator" [meaning said Samuel Mc Roberts,] " the living 
shame of an august assembly, I" [said Santangelo meaning] "feel the 
power of other duties. 1" [said Santangelo meaning] " am to follow 
such a course as the Honor of the Senate, and of the Nation repre- 
sented by it, demands. 

And in a certain other part of said libel, there was and is contained, 
these otYiQx false, scandalous, malicious, defamatory and libellous words 
and matter following, of, and concerning the said Samuel Mc Roberts, 
that is to say: " What I" (said Santangelo meaning) "now have to 
tell you" (said Mc Roberts meaning) " my darling little one, must be 
prefaced by my stating to you that, he ivho has already been qualified 
as an ' ungenerous and villanous being,'' and charged ivtth wanton in- 
jurious and reckless knavery, as you (said Mc Roberts meaning) 
" were in my letter" (meaning the letter of said Santangelo) " of the 
first instant, has no right to have his insults taken notice of until he 
clears himself of those debasing qualifications, either through a frank 
apology, or by such means as are pointed out by the laws of chivalry 



17 

and honor, A knave'^ (meaning said Mc Roberts) " cannot offend any 
hodyy And in a certain other part of said libel, there was and is con- 
tained, these oXhQX false, scandalous, malicious, defamatory, and libel- 
lous words and matter following, of and concerning the said Samuel 
Mc Roberts: " Your jest" (meaning the jest of said Samuel Mc Rob- 
erts) " only proves that you" (said Mc Roberts meaning) " are either a 
most consummate jackass, or a designing author of false imputations. 
And in a certain other part of said libel, there was and is contained, 
,these other false, scandalous, malicious and libellous words and matter 
following, of and concerning the said Samuel Mc Roberts: '' Are you" 
(said Mc Roberts meaning) " not a knave ?." And in a certain other 
part of said libel there was, and is contained these other false, scanda- 
lous, malicious, defamatory, and libellous words and matter, follow- 
ing, of, and concerning the said Samuel Mc Roberts, that is to say : 
" And is the respectability of my promises" (meaning the promises of 
said Santangelo) " to be questioned by a man" (meaning said Samuel 
Mc Roberts) " whose offers, promises, engagements in the very case now 
in question, have so glaringly turned out to be hut a heap of the foulest 
frauds .'" And in a certain other part of said libel, there was, and is 
contained these other false, scandalous, malicious, defamatory, and libel- 
lous words and matter following, of, and concerning the said Samuel 
Mc Roberts, that is to say, " Are you" (said Mc Roberts meaning) "a 
man! P' (said Santangelo meaning) " ask pardon; I thought you" (said 
Mc Roberts meaning) " xvere an ourang outang." 

And in a certain other part of said libel, there was contained these 
other false, scandalous, malicious, defamatory, and libellous words and 
matter following, of, and concerning the said Samuel Mc Roberts, that 
is to say " Do you" (said Mc Roberts meaning) " U7iderstand these 
words : duty, honor, rights, country, sovereignty, &c.," " you" (said 
Mc. Roberts meaning) " miserable slave of money, certificates, dollars, 
cents, interest, and of every thing that is mean, dirty, base, vulgar, vil- 
lanous, covetous, sordid and cowardly ?" And in a certain other part 
of said libel, there was, and is contained these other false, scandalous, 
malicious, defamatory, and libellous words and matter following, of, 
and concernmg the said Samuel Mc Roberts, that is to say; " That an 
ignoramus" (meaning said Mc Roberts) "who applies in the same 
phrase to the substantive United States, the verb " have" in the plural, 
and the singular possessive pronoun "her;" "who (salid Samuel Mc 
Roberts meaning) "is fit only to sweep the stairs of the'^Senate, and 
who evinces his abilities to discharge the high duties of his station only 
by greedily devouring eight dollars per day, is not in need of advice 
from any body — granted." 

And in a certain other part of said libel, there was in, and is con- 
tained these other false, scandalous, malicious, delamatory and libellous 
words and matter, of, and concerning the said Samuel Mc Roberts, that 
is to say, " Millions of dollars would never be preferred by me" (said 
Santangelo meaning) " to the extreme pleasure of proclaiming you" 
[said SamuelMc Roberts meaning] " to be a dastardly knave" to the 
great scandal, infamy, and disgrace of the said Samuel Mc Roberts, to 
the evil example of all others, and against the peace of the people of 
the State of New York and their dignity." 

And the Jurors aforesaid upon their oath aforesaid do further present, 

3 



18 

that the said Orazio de Attellis Santangelo further contriving, inteftcP 
ing, as aforesaid, on the said twenty-sixth day of August in the year of 
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, with force and 
ARMS &c. at the first ward of the city and county of New York afore- 
sa^ of his hatred, malice and ill-will towards the said Samuel Mc Rob- 
ets, unlawfully, wickedly and maliciously did print and publish, and 
cause and procure to be composed, printed and published, in the form 
of a letter to one William S. Fulton, a certain other false, scandalous 
and defamatory libel, of, and concerning the said Samuel Mc Roberts, 
containing therein, amongst other things, the foUoAving false, scandal- 
ous, malicious, defamatory and libellous ivords and matter, of, and con- 
cerning the said Samuel Mc Roberts, that is to say : " This Mc Rob- 
erts" (said Samuel Mc Roberts meaning) " must be one of those suffi- 
sants or -parvenus who having succeeded to snatch from the credulity 
of an ignorant mass of the people in their savage abode an appoint- 
ment to a high office, fondly believe themselves to be truly endowed 
with such a high respectability of talents and character as to compel 
all men, of all classes and nations, to admire in silence all their thoughts 
and doings, even their ridiculous presumption, even their criminal in- 
solence. In a country where mobocracy is less in honor, this Mc Rob- 
erts would find himself very happy to clean boots at one dollar per 
month," to the great scandal, infamy and disgrace of the said Samuel 
Mc Roberts, to the evil example of all others and against the peace of 
the people of the State of New York and their dignity. 

And the Jurors aforesaid upon their oath aforesaid do further present 
that the ^id Orazio de Attellis Santangelo, further contriving and in- 
tending as aforesaid, on the said twenty-sixth day of August in the year 
of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-two" with force and 
arms" &c. at the first ward of the city and county of New York afore- 
said, of his hatred, malice, and ill-Avill towards the said Samuel Mc 
Roberts, unlawfully, wickedly and maliciously, did compose, print and 
publish, and cause and procure to be composed, printed and published, 
a certain other false, scandalous, malicious and defamatory libel, of, and 
concerning the said Samuel Mc Roberts, containing therein, amongst 
other things, the following false, scandalous, malicious, defamatory and 
libellous words and matter, of, and concerning said Samuel Mc Roberts, 
that is to say : " the world, to whom this circular is addressed, will easily 
perceive that if not for the enormity of the crime, certainly for the re- 
finement of immorality, the Honorable Mitchell, lately condemned to 
the State Prison of New York, is far surpassed by the Honorable Mc 
Roberts" (meaning said Samuel Mc Roberts) " still a Senator of the 
United States," to the great scandal, infamy, and disgrace of the said 
Samuel Mc Roberts, to the evil example of all others, and against the 
pecLce^of the people of the State of Neio York and their dignity. 

Whiting, District Attorney. 
Endorsed, " John B. Purrov, Esq." 



19 

NO. 35. 

AFFIDAVIT OF SANTANGELO. • 

Court of General Sessions of the Peace, in and for the City and County 
(of New York — The People of the State of New York — vs. Obazio be 
A. Santangelo. 

Orazio de A. Santangelo, the above named defendant, being duly 
sworn, says that the indictment in this cause was found on the 7th 
September instant — that on the 8th of said month Jno. B. Purroy called at 
the office of the District Attorney and asked the clerk for a copy of said 
indictment, as deponent is informed, and said clerk replied that there 
was no copy then ready but that one would be ready this day— That de- 
ponent with his said counsel went this morning again to the office of 
said District Attorney, about 10 A. M., and then obtained a copy of the 
indictment — That deponent received information this morning for the 
first time that his case would be called on this morning, when deponent 
appeared in Court and plead not guilty. 

And deponent further says that the aforesaid indictment is for an al- 
leged libel said to have been published against Samuel Mc Roberts — 
That deponent has seen a publication signed by said Mc Roberts of a 
very scandalous and libellous character against deponent, wherein, 
among other opprobrious and defamatory epithets, deponent is accused 
of being a " felon" a " traitor" and a " low, base and infamoxts 
scoundrel" — That deponent has received information and verily believes 
that such publication has been written, published, and circulated by said 
Mc Roberts. 

That the subject and occasion of the alleged libel of deponent are con- 
nected with the transactions of the late mixed commission to determine 
the demands of citizens of the United States against Mexico — That de- 
ponent, who is a citizen of the U. S., was and still is a claimant against 
Mexico, and had an award in his favour of $50,000 — that duly authen- 
ticated copies of documents used before said Commission and now on 
file at Washington, will be necessary for deponent on the trial of the 
cause, without which copies deponent cannot safely proceed to trial as 
he is advised by his said Counsel and verily believes — That deponent 
does not expect to be able to procure said copies before the next Novem- 
ber term of this Court. 

That William J. Fulton, Senator of the U. S. from the State of Ar- 
kansas, and other Senators whose residence this deponent has not yet 
been able to ascertain, and Eugene Plunkett, a resident of the city of 
Washington, are material Avitnesses for this defendant, and without 
their testimony this defendant cannot safely proceed to trial as deponent 
is advised and verily believes. 0. de A. Santangelo. 

Sworn to, this 9th day of Sept. 1842, in open Court. 

Henrt Vandervookt, Clerk, 



20 

NO. 36. 

DEPOSITION AND CROSS EXAMINATION OF JOHNSON K. 

ROGERS. 

Court of General Sessions — City and County of New York — The 
People, &c, vs. Orazio de Attellis Santangelo — Indictment for a 
Libel. 

The deposition of Johnson K. Rogers, taken by order of the Court, 
and by agreement of parties, to be read in evidence upon the trial of 
said cause, subject to all legal exceptions, said deposition being taken at 
the office of James K. Whiting, Esq. in the City of New York, this 
tenth day of December, A. D., 1842. 

JOHNSON K. ROGERS, being duly sworn, doth depose and say as 
follows, that he was in the city of Washington, about the first part of 
August last, and that copies of a pamphlet signed Santangelo, assailing 
the Honorable Samuel Mc Roberts, were received there by members of 
Congress, and circulated in said city of Washington — that in said month 
of August he accompanied the Hon. Samuel Mc Roberts, a Senator 
of the United States, Irom the State of Illinois, to whom said pamphlet 
is addressed, to the City of New York, and that he, the deponent, in 
company with Mr. Bell, called at the house where said Santangelo 
resided, and enquired of said Santangelo about said pamphlet — that 
said Orazio Attellis Santangelo gave this deponent tiuo copies of said 
pamphlet, one of which is hereto attached, headed "a Circular to the 
World." Said Santangelo at the same time gave to Mr. Bell, two of 
said pamphlets in presence of this deponent, this was on the twenty- 
sixth day of August last ; said Santangelo stated that he was the lori- 
ter and publisher of said pamphlet, and that he had distributed and cir- 
culated the same in this City (the City of New York) — and that he had 
sent copies of the same to the members of Congress, and to the mem- 
bers of the Diplomatic Corps at Washington City — said Santangelo, 
further stated in the same conversation, that he had never seen Mr Mc 
Roberts, but that his design was to hold him up to the public in the man- 
ner set forth i7i said 'pamphlet. 

Being cross examined by defendant's Counsel, he says, he thinks the 
Mr. Bell referred to above, is a Printer — he (Bell) resides in the City 
of New York, as witness is informed by Smith the Police officer — said 
Bell was present during the Avhole of the conversation between witness 
and Santangelo— witness requested Bell to accompany him for the pur- 
pose of being present at the interview which might take place between 
Mr. Santangelo and witness — witness went to Mr Santangelo's residence 
at the request of Mr. Mc Roberts — Mr. Mc Roberts told me that Mr. 
Santangelo might take the exception that he was not the author of the 
publication, and that the object was to ascertain from Mr. Santangelo 
himself that he ivas the author— v^hew witness went to Santangelo's, 
witness told Santangelo that he wanted to buy some of the pamphlets, 
that witness lived in Georgia, and lie ivanted to buy some to send to his 
friends — Santangelo received no money or compensation for the pam- 
phlets— witness is an intimate friend of Mr. Mc Roberts — witness re- 
ceived no compensation for calling upon Mr. Santangelo, nor was he 
offered any, nor promised any— Santangelo told witness, that he (San- 



21 

tangelo) had been badly treated by Mc Roberts, and hence he [Santan* 
gelo] published the pamphlet — Santangelo also said, that he [Santange- 
lo] had defended the United Stales, in Mexico in a paper which he pub- 
lished there, a.nd tha.t that was the cause of his banishment; that he 
was, and had been a citizen of the United States for the last ten or fif- 
teen years; that he had claims against the government of Mexico, as a 
citizen of the United States ; that the Mixed Commission had awarded 
to him a certain sum, and that he [Santangelo] had certificates for said 
sum: that Mrs. Santangelo and a Mr. Plunkett had called upon Mr. Mc 
Roberts with these Certificates for the purpose of borrowing, or raising 
money, and that they had got a certain amount from Mr. Mc Roberts 
for the Certificates, twenty-five cents on the dollar, and that he (Santan- 
gelo) and Mc Roberts had had a dispute in relation thereto. 

Witness saw in Washington City on Monday last, a pamphlet like 
the annexed pamphlet marked B signed in the same manner — I saw the 
pamphlet last mentioned at Mrs. Mounts^ in Washington, where witness 
boarded — the name of Senator Fulton was upon it ; but not in the hand- 
writing of Mr. Mc Roberts. 

Said Mc Roberts requested witness to call on Santangelo as above 
for the purpose also of obtaining proof that he [Santangelo^ had pub- 
lished said pamphlet here. [Signed] John K. Rogers. 

Sworn to before me this 10th day of September, 1842. 

J. Labagh, Commissioner of Deeds. 

We agree that the above deposition be read on the trial of the above 
cause, subject to all legal exceptions, in the same manner as if the same 
had been taken before one of the Judges of the Court of Sessions. Sep- 
tember 10th, 1842. 

[Signed] J. R. Whiting, District Attorney. 

J. B. PuRRor, of Counsel for Defs, 

NO. 37, 

New York, July 25th, 1842. 
Mr. Santangelo, 

To James Turney, Dr. 

To printing Pamphlet " Circular to the World," 300 copies, $14 00 
" Paper for covers and binding, 1 38 

$15 58 
Received Payment, 

James Turney. 

IffO. 38. 

Washington, 5th Sept. 1842. 
Madame, 

In answer to your enquiry I have to say that I have had some busi- 



22 

ness transactions with Mr. Santangelo, during his residence in this city 
and that in them his conduct was gentlemanly and lionorable. 
I am very respectfully, yours, &c. 

Francis A. Dickens. 
Mrs. Santangelo, Washington, 

mo. 39, 

Washington, Sept. 5th, 1842. 
Dear Madam, 

I take great pleasure in bearing testimony to the honorable conduct 
and gentlemanly deportment of your respected husband, Mr. O. de A. 
Santangelo, for since I have had the pleasure of his acquaintance— now 
nearly two years — I have remarked in him all those finer feelings that 
characterize the educated gentleman and man of honor. 

Permit me, Madam, to sign myself your respectful and obt. servant. 

Chas. Fenderich. 
Madame Santangelo, Washington City, D. C 



Washington City, Sept. 5th, 1842, 

G. L. Thompson of the city of Washington, having this day appeared 
before me and being duly sworn, deposeth and saith that he is well ac- 
quainted with Sig. Orazio de Attellis Santangelo, and that he has been 
residing in this city for some time past ; that his deportment and char- 
acter have been that of a high-minded, independent, and well bred gen- 
tleman, most intelligent and Avell informed. 

He ihe said deponent further says, that of his own knowledge the said 
Sig. Santangelo has devoted much time to the investigation of the 
Claims of American Citizens against Mexico, and written much on this , 
important subject. And from the general knowledge the deponent has 
of Sig. Santangelo, he believes him incapable of doing any man inten- 
tionally an injury or an unkindness, except when he has been previous- 
ly insulted, ill-treated, or wronged. 

G. L. Thompson. 

Sworn and subscribed before me, this 5th day of September, 1842. 

Gilbert L. Giberson, J. P. 

Washington City, Sept. 6th, 1842. 
I certify, that for the last two years I have been well acquainted with 
Mr. Santangelo, and that, during that period of timej I have uniformly 



23 

ibund his deportment to be that of a gentleman. In all my dealiiigg 
■with Mr. Santangelo he has acted as a man of strict integrity. 

Vincent Masi. 

Sworn and subscribed before the undersigned, a Justice of the Peacd 
in and for the County of Washington, District of Columbia. 

W. Thompson, J. P. 

:^Q. 42. 

Washington City, Sept. 7th, 1842< 
Madam Santangelo, 

I take great pleasure in saying that I became acquainted with your 
husband more than a year ago, and have often met him in my office 
and elsewhere in this city, and have always regarded him as a gentle- 
man, and a man of honor. 

With great respect, your obt. servant, 

N. Callan, Jr. 



CONFIDENTIAL. 

New York, Sept. 26th, 1842, 
Dear Sir, 

In your Weekly Herald, which is in my possession, dated Saturday, 
June 18th, 1842, page 308— column 3d— under the head : " Washing- 
ton, Monday Evening (which was the 13th of June)— Proceedings ?n 
Congress" — I read the following : 

" A personal altercation took place in the Senate between Mc Ro^ 
berts of Illinois, and Mr. Smith of Connecticut. Mr. Smith charged 
Mr. Mc Roberts with falsehood" &c. 

You know. Sir, that I am now under trial for libel before the Court 
of Sessions of this city. One of the charges made by the accuser Mc 
Roberts is to have repeated the above statement in my letter to him of 
the 30th of the same month of June. The charge, published in a scur- 
rilous pamphlet of the 9th of August last, is conceived in the following 
terms : 

" He (myself) says in his publication that I was charged with false- 
hood in open Senate ; and he is so minute as to state the day (the 13th 
of June). The following letter from the Hon. Richard M. Young and 
the Hon. W. R. King, two of the Senators, prove this to be another of 
the falsehoods of this low, base, and infamous scoundrel." 

The letter quoted by Mc Roberts is the following : " Senate Cham- 
ber, August 1st, 1842— Hon. Samuel Mc Roberts— Sir ; Your note is 
received, in which you inform us that one O. de Santangelo, in a publi- 
cation recently made, has stated that you were charged on the 13th of 
June, by one of the Senators, in open Senate, with falsehood, and you 
ask us to say whether the statement is true or not. — In answer we un- 



24 

hesilatingly say that the statement, by t«/toet'er made, is utterly Mrt^rwe." 
— Your obedient servants— Richard M. Young — William R. King. 

We have, then here, my dear Sir, two Senators who assert that the 
statement, hy whoever made (thus including the Herald) h untrue, and 
a Mc Roberts, who, in his gratuitous supposition of my having been the 
inventor of the statement (whilst he could not be ignorant of the fact of 
my having copied it from a newspaper which is in the hands of every- 
body all over the Union, and which he did not dare to contradict 
when made by the Herald), applies directly to me, and indirectly to the 
Editor of the Herald, in his senatorial gravity and decency, the noble 
epithets of " low, base, and infamous scoundrel." 

In the necessity of refuting, in my turn, these slanders, I shall not be 
able to refrain from producing before the Court that Number of the 
Herald, because I cannot doubt that a paper so constantly distinguished 
for its courageous veracity, will but fully evince the libellous culpabil- 
ity of that pater conscripius. It is my duty, however, to address to you 
these few lines beforehand, to consult your opinion on the subject, 
being ready to conform with it, if it is possible to conciliate it, in some 
way or otherj with the supremely important object of sheltering myself 
from the assault, which is threatening at once my honor, my liberty, 
nnd, perhaps, at some future period, my life 

Pray, favor me with an answer as speedily as convenient, and be- 
lieve me at all times. 

Respectfully yours, &c. 

O. de A. Santangelo, 130 Broadway. 

J. G. Bennett, Esq., New York. 

I certify that the above is a copy of a letter handed by me to J. G. 
Bennett Esq. this 26th day of September, 1842. 

Eugene Plunkett. 

SJO. 44. 

The original letter of Mad. Santangelo, dated Washington, July 12, 
1842, addressed to Santangelo New York, and containing this informa- 
tion : 

" I have at last succeeded in finding your letter to Mc Roberts, and 
have sent it to you immediately. I hope you will receive it safely as 
you appear so very desirous of having it. — M. de A. Santangelo." 

To which the following lines from Mr. Plunkett are subjoined : 

" My Dear Friend — Madame having written to you at length, I will 
v)nly inform you that, as your letter to Mc Roberts is rather voluminous, 
I have mailed it to you under an envelope franked by a member of Con- 
gress. — Ever yours — 

Eugene ," 



25 

Washington, August 2otli, 1843. 
Dear Sir ; 

Under date of the 21st inst., I forwarded to you an " Address," writ- 
ten by Samuel Mc Roberts, of the U. S. Senate, and bearing date the 
9th August, 1842. In this infamous publication such mention is made 
of me, that I cannot refrain from passing some remarks on the elegant 
effusion and its accomplished author. 

In the first place he attempts to show that the statements which I 
naade to you, of the part that I took, while transacting business with 
him for you, were untrue ; but this very attempt on his part but reflects 
on himself He admits, in the account which he gives of our inter- 
course, that after refeatedly trying to arrange the matter with which I 
was entrusted by you, I " finally got one (a written obligation) to con- 
form to his offer ;" but that I substituted a neiv condition, and that was, 
that although the note was signed and delivered to me for him, I would 
retain the possession of it, unless he ivould sign an obligation to me, 
which I had also brought, but which he did not read. In this ivould-he 
ingenious statement every body must detect a gross and badly disguis- 
ed attempt to hide, pervert and distort truth. The obligation which 
I exacted from him — as you have most clearly stated in your " Circu- 
lar TO THE World"— was neither more nor less than a Receipt for 
the bond that I was to give him, to procure a final arrangement of the 
affairs in which I was your Agent ; and the most ignorant in matters 
oi business vawst admit, that I had every right in the world, to exact a 
receipt from him, as I was delegated by a third party to whom it was 
necessary that I should exhibit some evidence of having faithfully trans- 
acted the afiair entrusted to my care. His statement with regard to the 
neio conditio?!, is a direct, ivilful, and deliberate lie [to use his own 
classic phrase] — for there was ?io condition proposed ; but I plainly told 
him, that unless he gave me the receipt I demanded, for the purposes 
above exposed, I would not give him Mr. Nourse's bond, and from that 
moment would consider the whole transaction as being at an end. He 
refused to give me a receipt, but said that he 'woxAdiachioioledge to have 
received a paper from jne in the presence of one of the Servants of the 
Senate Chamber, who was standing by (and whose powerful aid he has 
invoked, in the shape of a Cei'tificate, in which nothing is proved, how- 
ever, but that person was a very bad eaves-dropper, since he could not 
correctly report that which he tried so hard to overhear) : to this I ob- 
jected, telling him that if he was indifferent as to what description of 
people he brought into his affairs, I loas not j and saying further, that 
even in the case that I were contented to have such individuals made 
acquainted with my business, such evidence could be destroyed, by 
death, removal or other means, and, in the end, would not satisfy those 
for whom I was negotiating. It will seem strange that I, who am not 
much given to suspicion, should have used so much precaution in my 
intercourse with this man ; but his oAvn course of action gave birth to 
it, for, from the first I thought I could perceive an evident desire on 
his part to ensnare and deceive me. The issue has proved how true 
jny doubts were ! And I have lately learned, from a most creditable 

4 



26 

source, that the rascally actions of this creature towards you and myself, 
are to be considered as deeds of virtue, Avhen compared to his many 
other bad acts, both in private and public life, as exposed by Mr. Pren- 
tiss of the Louisville Journal. One of the strongest proofs of how great 
a scoundrel he thinks himself, is to be found in the note attached to his 
" Address ;" for he has therein shown that he thinks it necessary that 
his own false and calwnnious statements should be endorsed by the 
ve7ial and cowardly puhlisher, who has not dared to make himself known ! 
To all honest men, this will be evidence enough, I think, of how des- 
picable a being he is. 

As to the epithets used by him, I will content myself with remarking, 
that from such evidences of vulgarity, ignorance and baseness of mind, 
no harm can result to me, but, on the contrary, they must furnish con- 
clusive proofs of his own worthlessness and self-degradation. 

Mr. Robert Beale's statement is inaccurate. He never tendered me 
the certificates, but merely asked me if I had the money ready for their 
redemption, as I informed you in my letter dated the 6th July ; to 
which I responded that from what took place at my last interview with 
Mc Roberts, I was certain at that; time (and he must have been so like- 
wise) that the Avhole affair was at an end, and that, hence, we had 
taken no steps to procure the money to redeem said certificates. I will 
make no comment on this mis-statement of Mr. Beale, other than that 
Governor Fulton, of the U. S. Senate, cannot, as an honorable man, do 
otherwise than corroborate what I now say. 

I am well aware that if the respective stations only of Mc Roberts and 
myself are considered, my statements will make but little impression 
on the world at large — he being an Honorable (?) Senator of the United 
States, and I an humble citizen ; but I feel very confident, that as soon 
as the question of character is mooted, I shall have all precedence over 
one whose heinous actions, if more generally known, would cause him 
to be expelled, by universal acclamation, from that very station, of 
which he is the living disgrace. 

You, at least, my dear sir, know me well, and your good opinion is 
every consideration with 

Your respectful friend and obt. servant, 

Eugene Plunkett. 
To 0. de A. Santangelo, Esq. New York. 



Hon. Wm. S. Fulton, of the U. S. Senate— Arkansas— New York 
October 17, 1842— Sir — You are certainly not ignorant of my being here 
under trial for libel, sued by Hon. Samuel Mc Roberts from Illinois. 
This trial must come up early in December next, and one of the most 
essential points of my defence is to prove the real conversation had, on 
the 6th of July last betAveen Mr. Robert Beale and Mr. E. Plunkett in 
your presence, in Washington. 

The statement of Beale, as published by Mc Roberts in his libel 
ag amst me of the 9th of August in that city, is inexact, as in it truth is 



27 

quite mutilated and disfigured. Mr. Plunkett, who., on the same day 6th 
of July, wrote me from Washington to New York the true tenor of that 
conversation, will certainly sustain it on the trial ; but as Beale in his 
statement says: "Governor Fullon of the United States Senate was 
with me," Mr. Plunkett deemed it proper to address to you, in date of 
the 19th of September last, a request soliciting your respectable testi- 
mony in the case. One monih having elapsed without receiving from 
you any answer, it is to be supposed that his letter has been mislaid ; 
and hence, as your testimony is not less necessary to him than to my- 
self, I have obtained from him the accompanying copy of said letter, to 
which I take the liberty of soliciting now, in my own name, the answer 
your delicacy, honor and conscience may dictate. As to the true answer 
returned by Plunkett to Beale, it is contained in said letter written by 
him to you: I do not doubt that it will help your memory to recollect 
its tenor. 

My defence will ere long be made public ; truth will appear in it in 
its true light : and it will bejxiade by a man who attaching not the least 
importance to the eventual result of the trial, only cares for his honor, 
and shall not fail to display all his possible means in its defence. Then 
I am certain I will appear in your eyes as worthy of your esteem (apart 
from all preoccupations), as of the favor I now solicit, seizing this op- 
portunity to assure you of the highest regard, with which — I have the 
honor to be — Your most humble servant — 0. de A. Santangelo — 400 
Broadway. 

A copy of the letter of Mr. E. Plunkett to Governor Fulton, spoken of 
in the above letter of Mr. Santangelo. 

" New York, September 19th 1842 — Respected Sir — In a publication 
made by Hon. Samuel Mc Roberts of Illinois, entitled : "Address" &c., 
Mr. Robert Beale is made to certify that " he came to me in the city of 
Washington on the 6th of July 1842, and tendered me four Mexican Cer- 
tificates, requesting me to pay the money for the same at twenty-five 
cents to the dollar;" but he does not mention my true answer, as he 
says: "Plunkett declined to pay the money, and said he would do 
nothing in the matter." 

As you were present at our interview, and overheard all that passed, 
I take this liberty to request a line from yon in answer to this^ to prove 
the truth of the statement made by me in my letter of the same day to 
Mr. Santangelo, then in New York. In mentioning the occurrence to 
Mr. S. I wrote as follows : " This morning two gentlemen called at the 
house, and enquired for me. One of them was Governor Fulton, Sena- 
tor from Arkansas ; the other, whom I do not know, said that he came 
to enquire, at the request of Mc Roberts, whether the money for the 
Certificates was ready, as this was the 6th of the month, and as Mr. Mc 
Roberts had received a letter from the relatives of his wards requesting 
him to send them the Certificates — I answered the person Avho came 
that from" what had transpired between Mc Roberts and myself at our 
last interview, I was sure that he considered, as well as myself, that the 
whole affair ivas at an end, and that, therefore, we had not taken any 
steps to procure the money ; he then left me, saying he would tell Mr. 
Mc. Roberts what I said." 



iTou know tlie truth of this my statement, Sir, and hence I pray yotJ 
to grant my request. Its object is to satisfy those for whom I acted in 
that business, that my account of the interview was correct and true. 
It is corroborated by the lady in whose house Iboarded, who being in 
the passage-way, overheard what was said ; but your testimony will be 
much more satisfactory, as you were standing close by, and must have 
distinctly heard what passed. 

You perceive that I do not make this call on your politeness and 
honor without reason, for Mr. Beale in his Certificate, by suppressing 
my true answer, and by using the word " tendered" instead of simply 
stating that he only asked me if the money was ready, seems to imply 
that the report made by me to Mr. Santangelo was not exactly a true 

one. 

From the character of the gentleman. Governor Mouton, who did me 
the honor to introduce me to you, and from my own respectability, I 
trust you believe me to be incapable of any thing unworthy a gentle- 
man ; and therefore I appeal lo you, as a man of honor, and for the 
sake of justice to give me the means of showing my veracity in the pre- 
sent instance— I have the honor to be— Your respectful servant— Eu- 
gene Plunketx— Hon, Wm. S. Fulton— Little Rock, Arkansas." 



New York, October 17, 1842.— Dear Sir— by this day's mail, I take 
the liberty of addressing you a publication made by me, nearly two 
months since, in which you will find a true account of a scandalous 
transaction, which took place between Samuel Mc E.oberts, a Senator 
from Illinois, and myself; and in AA^hich I was said Senator's victim, and 
suffered a loss of $1650. 

I will noAV inform you. Sir, that said publication has been made the 
ground whereon that person has built a suit for libel, which is to be 
tried before the Court of General Sessions of this place, early in the 
coming month of December. 

You must furthermore know, that previous to bringing said charge 
of libel, he published a pamphlet purporting to be in answer to my 
own, in which, instead of refuting a single word of mine, he indulges 
in the most indecent and undignified epithets and calumnies, worthy 
only of the inhabitants of Billingsgate, in Avhich place, taking this 
writing in evidence, said Senator would be perfectly at home. 

Being informed of the circumstaoces of the case, I hope you will 
pardon tlie freedom I take in thus unceremoniously requesting a favor 
from one who is only known to me by his talents and reputation. 
While in Washington, I was informed by a mutual friend, that you 
had made a public expose of the character, principles and acts of this 
pseudo-honorable gentleman, either through the columns of your pa- 
per, or in some other Avay ; and that you had in your possession irre- 
fragable proofs of both his social and political dishonesty. If this be 
the case, sir, allow me to request you to send me copies of whatever 
publications you may have in your possession, relating in any way to 
that individual, and to give me all such other information respecting 
him, as you may judge proper for me to make known, without com- 
promising in the least your name and person. Such things would be 



29 

of essential service to me on trial, as Mc Roberts is but little known in 
this place, and as the title of" Senator," no matter by whom it is borne, 
carries with it a great moral influence, which it is necessary I should 
oppose by every just means within my reach. 

I make this request without the slightest hesitation, as I am confident 
that should compliance with it prove objectionable, you will answer 
me with the frankness that has always characterized you ; but allow 
me to assure you^ in case that you grant my entreaty, that I will be en- 
tirely guided by your restrictions respecting the manner and the extent 
to which I can avail of whatsoever you may put in my possession. — 
Respectfully, — Your obedient servant — S-Antangelo. — To Prentiss, 
Esqr., Editor of the Louisville Journal. 



iNo, ^e, 



New York, Oct. 24, 1842. 



John M. Johnson, Esqr. Washington. 

Dear Sir, 

Mr. Plunkett informs me that while in Washington he repeatedly 
importuned you for a copy of the " Index" of the 6th of June, ultimo ; 
but it appears that you were unable to procure said paper for him. 

I now take this liberty for the purpose of obtaining from you — in the 
case you have not yet succeeded in finding a copy of that paper — a 
certified extract from said paper (which you must have on file) in 
which you will please copy the whole of the short article headed 
" Mexican Scrip,^^ and certify, as proprietor of the " Index," that said 
article was really published by you in your paper of the 6th of June. 
__! would not give you this trouble, but that certificate (or the paper 
itself) is essentially necessary to me. My counsel thinks this document 
indispensabl e. 

My trial will come on in the beginning of December; immediately 
after which I will either return to V/ashington myself, or send an agent 
to settle up my business there, and, amongst other matters, to satisfy 
your account against me. 

Permit me to assure you of the continued regard of 
Your humble and obdt. servt. 

(Signed) Santangelo. 

I certify the above is a true copy of a letter mailed this day; New 
York, Oct. 24, 1842. 

Eugene Plunkett. 

HO° 49. 

This is the New York " Aurora" of the 10th of September, 1842, 
wherein (page 2, column 4th) under the head of " Court of Sessions," 
the following fact about Santangelo's case being called up before said 
court, is reported : " Aaron Vanderpool appeared for the complainant 
(Mc Roberts), and said that the trial ought to proceed immediately. 
That one of the pamphlets was sent to every senator, and that Illinois 
was literally inundated with them." 



30 

no. 50. 

This is the "Evening Tattler" of New York, of the 27th September, 
1842, wherein is inserted an Editorial on the " Law of Libel," quoted 
in Mr. Santangelo's Instructions to his counsel. 

BO. 51. 

A literal translation from the Italian original filed in original docu- 
ments at said No. 

The undersigned, Consul General of the Kingdom of the Two-Sici- 
lies, certifies that Signor Orazio de Attellis, Marquis of Santangelo, 
belongs to one of the most distinguished, illustrious, and noble families 
of the Kingdom ; that he is there personally esteemed and valued for 
his talents; and that, concerned in the political affairs of 1821, he was 
obliged to depart from the country, after the fall of the Constitutional 
system there published ; but, since 1836, by a Royal Decree, he has 
been enabled to return into the kingdom, where, at his good conve- 
nience, he may enjoy a tranquil life, among a numerous circle of friends 
and relatives, accustomed through many years to admire the good quali- 
ties of one thus endowed. 

Given at New York, in the Chancery of the Consul General of the 
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, January 5th, 1 842. The Consul Gene- 
ral. 

[Seal.] Chev. R. Martuscelli. 



Copy — The Chancellor of the Grand Criminal Court of ihe Province 
of Naples certifies that, amongst the advocates admitted to said Grand 
Criminal Court, who have taken the oath prescribed by the 374th Arti- 
cle of the Constitution sworn to by His Majesty, is Don Orazio de At- 
tellis, Marquis of Santangelo — And in order that this may be known 
by all whom it concerns, 1 deliver this Certificate. — Done in Naples the 
16th of August, 1420— G. Caporale, the Chancellor— [Seal.] 

I certify, that the signature of the Chancellor G. Caporale is real and 
true — Mexico, 15th February, 1826— Citizen Andres Pignatelli Cer- 
CHiARA, ex-lieutenant general of Naples — [Seal.] 

The above signatures of Messrs. G. Caporale, and Andres Pignatelli 
Cerchiara, are certified to be true and genuine, in this Chancery of the 
Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Two-Sicilies — New York 
the 11th October, 1842. — The Consul General — R. Martuscelli. — 
{Seal.] 

SI®. 53. 

This is a printed copy of the " Prospectus of a Course of Lectures on 
the Theoretical Principles of Commerce" — by O. de A. Santangelo — 
New York — printed by G. F. Hopkins, 48 Pine-street, in 1824 ; with re- 
ferences to Messrs. Herman Lerot Esq. — William Batard, Jr. — De 
Rham & Moore — Peter Harmony — John B. Lasala — James D. P. Og- 



31 

DEN — Charles Mc Evers — G. G. & S. Howland — James Heard — D. 
Henderson Esq. — Robert Swanton — William Sampson. — [O^ Said 
Prospectus was translated from Mr. Santangelo's French autograph into 
English by Dr. Anderson, then and at present a Professor of Mathema- 
tics in Columbia College of New York. 

MS. 541. 

This is the " Evening Index" of Washington, of the 28th of June, 
1842, wherein (page 4th from column 1st to fith) is reported in English 
an " Extract from a volume published in 1826 in the city of Mexico, 
entitled " The fou7' first Discussions of the Congress of Panama such 
as they ought to he" by 0. de A. Santangelo, from page 128 to 162 — 
which caused his banishment from that country in said year 1826— a 
literal translation from the Spanish by L. Da Ponte of New York. 

sro. 55. 

This is the " Evening Index" of Washington, of the 7th July 1842, 
wherein (page 3d, columns 3d and 4th) are reported in English the 
copies of such editorials in the "CorreoAtlanatico," editedin Mexicoby 
O. de A. Santangelo, as caused his second banishment from that coun- 
try in 1835. 

3^0. 5@. 

This is the Original Commission (brevet) of Captain of the Volunteer 
Company of " Mount Vernon Musketeers," in the Washington Battal- 
ion, 1st Brigade of the Militia of Louisiana, delivered to 0. de A. San- 
tangelo by A. B. Roman, Governor of said State and commander in 
chief of the Militia thereof, in the City of New Orleans, on the 23d of 
July, 1839. 

^Q. 57. 

Washington, April 16th, 1841 — Sir : I have the honor to acknowl- 
edge the receipt of your notes of the 3d and 13th instant, and to inform 
you that you were last evening unanimously elected a "Resident Mem- 
ber" of the "National Institution for the Promotionof Science"— I avail 
myself of this occasion to renew to you the assurances of my high con- 
sideration, and have the honor to be— Sir — Your obedient servant— J. 
R. Poinsett.— 0. de Santangelo, Washington, 

E)?0. 58. 

Washington, 17th April, 1841 — Sir : I have the honor to inform you 
that you have been elected a "Resident Member" of the "National 
Institution for the Promotion of Science," established at Washington. 

The accompanying copy of the Constitution and By-Laws will ex- 
plain the objects of the Institution, and your aid in promoting them is 
earnestly and respectfully solicited. 



32 

I have the honor to be &:c.-~Francis Markoe, Jr. Corresponding Se- 
cretary. — 0. DE Santangelo, Esq. Washington. 

NO. 59. 

I, John Baldwin do hereby certify that I knew Mr. 0. de A. Santan- 
gelo by reputation in the Republic of Mexico : he acquired a very high 
standing in that country from his political writings ; his stedfast devotion 
to the cause of human liberty brought down on his devoted head the 
wrath of the imbecile Victoria, and the traitor knave Santa Anna, both 
of whom persecuted him illegally and unjustly because he would not 
condescend to write poems to their glory. 

I became personally acquainted with Mr. Santangelo in New Orleans, 
when he had opened an academy for the instruction of youth of both 
sexes ; his reputation as a teacher was of the first order, his moral char- 
acter unexceptionable, his conduct highly exemplary in the relative sit- 
uations of preceptor, gentleman and commandant of Mount Vernon 
Musqueteers, a volunteer company that with entire unanimity placed 
him in command. 

I afterwards met Mr. Santangelo in Washington City, where, as fel- 
low sufferers from the rapacity of Mexico, Ave became intimately ac- 
quainted : his principles, conduct, talents and enthusiastic devotion to 
the cause of justice and liberty, entitle him to the regard of the wise, 
liberal and just.— New York, Nov. 1st, 1842— John Baldwin. 

Sworn before me this 1st day of November, 1842. — A. B. Amerman, 
Commissioner of Deeds. 



This is the Certificate of Naturalization of Horace de Attellis de 
Santangelo, that is, the order of the Marine Court of the City of New 
York, by which, under date of the 29th of August, 1829, he was admit- 
ted to be a Citizen of the United Stores— Signed : Per Curiam. — John 
G. Tardy, clerk. 



PART L 



SNSTRUCTIONS GIVEN BY MR. 0. de A. SANTANGEL© 
TO HIS COUNSEL. 



On the 26th of August last, a pamphlet of 16 pages, dated the 26th 
of the preceding month of July, printed in New York, bearing my sig- 
nature, and entitled " A Circular to the World." was denounced be- 
fore the police-justice Parker, of this city, by Samuel Mc Roberts, a 
Senator of the United States for the state of Illinois, as a false, scan- 
dalous, malicious and defamatory libel against his good name and fame. 
A warrant was immediately issued by that magistrate, in virtue of which 
I was arrested in the night of the same day, brought before him, and 
obliged to give bail to the amount of ten thousand dollars, to avoid ma- 
terial imprisonment. 

On the 5th of September following, the proceedings instituted by jus- 
tice Parker, were transmitted to the Grand Jury through the district at- 
torney, J. R. Whiting. 

On the 6th I vainly solicited, through one of my counsel, from the 
police-justice Merritt, a writ against my accuser, Mc Roberts, as the au- 
thor and publisher himself of a true libellus famosus against me, dated 
AVashington, August 9, 1842, signed " Samuel Mc Roberts," entitled: 
" Address of Mr. Mc Roberts, of the Senate of the United States, in re- 
ply to a Publication of O. de Santangelo," and containing, under the 
plausible garb of a reply, the most defamatory insults and atrocious 
calumnies. 

On the same day, I also vainly entreated the district attorney to re- 
ceive, and lay before the Grand Jury, said Mc Roberts' libellous " Ad- 
dress" as a document intimately connected with my case, and one which 
ought to convince that body that no " true bill" could justly be found 
upon the charge preferred against me by my own libeller. 

On the 7th an indictment was drawn up, and sworn to by the Grand 
Jury (doc. 34), in consequence of which a " true bill" was found, and the 
affair brought, on the same day, before the Court of General Sessions, 
where, through my counsel, I pled not guilty. 

On the 8th, the case having been called up before that court, Mc Ro- 
berts' counsel, although his client had turned witness for the state (a 
witness the accuser ! a witness with a counsel !), urged for my imme- 
diate trials chiefly on the plea that " the state of Illinois was literally 
inundated with my libel." (doc. 49). 

5 



34 

On the 9th, I made affidavit before the court to be unable to proceed 
safely to trial until the next month of November (doc. 35), and the 
court, at the request of the accuser, prolonged the solicited adjournment 

to DcCClTlOCT, 

On the I'oth, a deposition and cross-examination of a Johnson N. 
Roo-ers, witness for the prosecution, was taken at the district attorney's 
office ; which deposition, by agreement of both parties, is to be read in 
evidence upon the trial of said cause, (doc. 36). 

I shall remark, en passant, that from the moment of my imprison- 
ment, up to the present day, I have never been heard, examined, ques- 
tioned, or permitted to expose any of the exceptions as could have le- 
gally prevented the finding of a " true bill" in the case, or given a less 
violent and more impartial direction to the procedure. 

From the ensemble of the mentioned occurrences, I think it proper to 
propose to my counsel the division of my defence into the four following 
points : 

The FIRST showing that my " Circular to the World," is not a libel : 

The SECOND, that in the hypothesis of my " Circular to the World," 
being libellous, its legal effects have been, both dejure and de facto, ful- 
ly destroyed by the accuser himself : 

The THIRD, that all the proceedings in the case, from begiiming to 
end, are highly exceptionable : 

The FOURTH, that, at all events, the state of New York, in other 
words, the plaintiff, has to avenge no offence whatever on my part to 
her peace or dignity, and consequently has no legal jurisdiction in the 
matter, my arrest having been but a false imprisonment. 

1st POINT. 

My " Circular to the World'^ is not a libel. 



Assertions of an injurious nature, either false or not proved, and out- 
rageous expressions or defamatory epithets wholly unprovoked, and 
consequently truly ivicked, ivilful and malicious, are in substance, and 
were in all ages, amongst all civilized nations, the true characteristics 
of the so-called libellus famostjs ; that is, of a writing, printed or 
manuscript, not merely injurious in itself, but actually inferring, through 
its publication and circulation, an injury to the fame of innocent persons. 

From these very premises it obviously follows that, should assertions, 
expressions, or epithets, however outrageous, be grounded on true and 
proved facts, on strong provocations, and of course not wantonly mali- 
cious, especially when no other legal means for redress are possibly to 
be resorted to, against offences to that most vital of all social rights, 
called Honor, in such cases there is, and there can be no lihel properly 
so called, and of course no legal cause for judicial inquests. 

To come to a proper application of these uncontrovertible dogmas of 
universal jurisprudence, a plain and as concise as possible exposition of 
the/rtci5, as established by, or resulting from the evidence hitherto ob- 
tained^ followed by such legal observations, and ra tional arguments, as 



35 

the case may require or suggest, will place in the hands of the court the 
string of Arianna, which will lead it to ground its conscientious sentence 
on the unexceptionable basis of truth. 

FACTS, 

At the time in which Senator Samuel Mc Roberts provoked the quar- 
rel, I was labouring in Washington under the most excruciating and un- 
remitting mental irritation ; a circumstance of great moment, I should 
think, of which I beg leave to tender here a synoptical account. 

The hopes of several hundreds of American citizens in the protection 
of their government to obtain from that of Mexico a redress for the atro- 
cious wrongs inflicted on them in that country, had long been kept alive 
by the promises of Presidents Monroe, Adams, Jackson and Van Bu- 
ren. A convention was, at last, concluded by the latter, on the 11th of 
April 1839, with Mexico, establishing in the City of Washington a 
jmixt board of Commissioners, two from Mexico and two from the Unit- 
ed States, for the judicial liquidation cf all claims, on the basis of the 
law of nations, the treaties existing between the two countries, and the 
principles of justice, by referring those cases on which they could not 
agree, to the final and conclusive decision of a foreign arbitrator. This 
was the King of Prussia, represented ad hoc by his minister in Washing- 
ton, Baron Roenne. The board was to meet there in July 1840, and to 
terminate its duties within eighteen months from the day of its meet- 

Myself, one of the claimants on Mexico to a large amount, I was at 
that period, and had been for nearly five years, established in the city of 
New Orleans, anxiously waiting for some action on the part of our gov- 
ernment to procure from that of Mexico the indemnities, to which I was 
entitled as a citizen of the United States. I was there enjoying, from 
my hard literary labours in behalf of uneducated youth, happiness, 
tranquillity and plenty, and at the same time lending my personal ser- 
vice to the State of Louisiana in her militia, in the capacity of a com- 
missioned captain of the volunteer company "Mount Vernon Mtiske- 
teers." The convention with Mexico then compelled me to repair to 
Washington, the importance and complicated nature of my claims not 
permitting me to abandon them exclusively to the care of attorneys. 

My confidence in the protection of our government, as well as my re- 
moval with my wife, a servant, and an assistant, soon proved however, 
the most disastrous to me. The cessation of my literary Institute in 
New Orleans, from which I derived an income of upwards of $6000 per 
annum ; the hasty sale of my rich furniture at auction ; my costly 
journey to Washington ; two years ol expensive residence there ; the 
heavy costs of the prosecution of my claims ; the indispensable publica- 
tion of four voluminous pamphlets in support of my trampled rights ; 
the translations and double copies, in English and Spanish, required by 
the board, of nearly two hundred documents ; the attending notarial 
fees and postages ; the remuneration of three thousand dollars, due by 
contract, and paid, to my counsel David Hoffman, Esquire &c. all this 
formed an aggregate amount of positive losses and damages of nearly 
TWENTY-FOUE THOUSAND DOLLARS ! ! ! Add to this the arbitrary and 
tyrannical proceedings of the mixt board, partly permitted by the con- 



36 

mention Itself, whichi publicly demonstrated to be /'^^f '^^fj^^^'^^"^^^ 
constitutional, and absurd in all its provisions (-^) ' ^^^^ Pf'^^^J^.i^/ '"^ 
suit of the most barefaced violations of that very compact on tne pari 
StheMeSn Commissioners (b), unaccountably seconded by their 
Imerican "olleagues (c), and shLefully P-tected by ou^ fhTpSby 
State (d ) ; the whole of which was loudly evinced through the press oy 
The numberless and always disregarded remonstrances oi jn^njd^^l 
ants, amongst whom were Messrs. Baldwin, Parro t, Leggett 1 homp 
son &c. claimants to the amount of millions of dollars &c. the truth oi 
which I would feel happy to be compelled to prove at all ^'^^^^'^ ^ "=- 
orous court of justice in the face of the world Add, agam, the revolt 
ing and unjastifiable meanness of the award, rendered inmylavoroy 
the Prussian umpire, to whom my case had been referred by he disa- 
greeing mixt board, of the ridiculous sum o? Jifil/ thousand dollars on 
nearly /owr hundred thousand, which was the total and true amount, 
capital and interest, of my two Claims, he having capriciously awardert 
said round sum of $50,000 on one of them, despotically leaving the otner 
unacted upon, under the plea of its being "om of the competency ol 
that board !" [e]. And add, lastly, to this heap of lawless and tell 
doings of both the board and the umpire, the hostile silence, contempt- 
uous indifference add stubborn inaction of the Executive in refusing not 
only to demand from Mexico the payment of the miserable sums already 
awarded to claimants, in virtue of a public treaty, of a judicial liquida- 
tion, and consequently under the pledged responsability of the Ameri- 
can government, but in not even exacting from Mexico the interest 
agreed upon in the Convention, wherein it was stipulated [Art. VI] that 
*' all amounts due were to be paid immediately after the decisions in 
the several cases shall have taken place [f ]." 



(a) — See my pamphlet, entitled, " Charges preferred against Don Joaquin Ve- 
lasquez de Leon and Don Pedro Fernandez del Castillo, members of the board of 
Commissioners &c. Washington, D. C, June 29, 1841." 

(b)— See Ibid. 

(c) — See page 147 of my pamphlet, entitled, "■ Statement of facts relating to 
the claims of Orazio de Attellis Santangelo on Mexico, &c. Washington, D. C, 
October 22, 1841." 

(d) — See my pamphlet, entitled, "Protest against the Convention of April 
11th, 1839, between the United Stales of America and the P^epublic of Mexico, 
and against both of said governments &Cr Washington, January 13th, 1842." 

(e) — The wrong oi' baron Roenne, in this instance, is lucidly demonstrated in 
another pamphlet which is under press in Washington, at the printing office of 
Col. Force, and of which 108 pages are already struck off. 

(f ) — See my seven letters to the President of the United States, first published 
in the " Index" of Washington, and then re-published by P. * * * in New- York, 
in pamphlet form, under the title of " The honor of the United States of America, 
under the administration of Tyler, Webster & Co. New- York, August 12, 1842.'' 

\\~J=' Another decisive proof of the cabalistic conduct of the Secretary of State 
towards the American claimants on Mexico, has been shown of late by a letter of 
our Minister Plenipotentiary in Mexico, Gen. Thompson, to an eminent lawyer at 
Washington, dated " Mexico, September 6, 1842, of which the following is an 
extract : — 

" I do not think there will be any difficulty in making the new arrangement of 
" giving them (the Mexican government) time, and having a day fixed for the 
" payment, and under very sufficient guaranties. In a word, they are terribly 
" frightened j and if I had the papei^ and instructions (as it is to me perfectly 



37 

Such occurrences had involved many unhappy claimants on Mexico 
and amongst them myself, in the most distressing pecuniary difficulties 
by placing them in the alternative either to fall in debt, humiliation, 
and disgrace to protract their lives and those of their disconsolate fami- 
lies, or to sacrifice, for a few cents on a dollar, the certificates of their 
liquidated, pitilessly reduced, but definitively adjudged claims on Mexi- 
co ; which certificates had been delivered to them by our National 
Treasury, conformably to the respective awards of the board or the 
Prussian Umpire. 

It was under these calamitous circumstances that I happened to have 
to deal with Samuel Mc Roberts ! 

But who was thejirst provoker ? The following genuine and proved 
narrative will solve this important question. 

The Mexico- American board disbanded on the 25th of February 
ultimo. The Treasury Department delivered to those claimants, in 
whose favor awards had been made, the certificates of their respective 
creditsi commonly called " Mexican certificates" or " Mexican scrip." 
I received mine to the sum of $50,000. But this paper, quite unknown 
in our money-markets, had no fixed value. 

In the beginning of April following, I was in want of money. I had, 
on the 18th of February, punctually returned to a Dr. T. P. Jones $200 
which he had lent me for the expired term of four months, with the in- 
terest of 5 per ct. per month, besides a ionus of $5 (doc. 1). I was now 
on the point of applying again to him for money, when I was informed 
that a sale of Mexican Scrip, belonging to a deceased claimant, Mr. 
Miller, had taken place on the 28th of February at the auction store of 
Messrs. Robert, Dyer & Co. at 48 and 49 cents to the dollar ; and that a 
Samuel Mg Roberts, a senator from of Illinois, had bought some at 48 
cents (doc. 2). I was, moreover, apprized that said senator had still 
money to employ in the acquisition of Mexican Scrip. I then supposed 
that he would gladly have taken some of mine, at the same, if not at a 
higher price than he had paid for it at auction. But, on further inqui- 
ries, I learned that he would now prefer to advance money at 25 cents 
on the dollar in scrip, giving a certain time to redeem it by paying to 
him the legal interest at the rate of 6 per ct. per annum, under the con- 
dition of the pledged scrip remaining forfeited in his favor, if not re- 
deemed at the expiration of the term agreed upon. 

This arrangement seemed to me far more advantageous than the sale 
of my scrip at 48, or even at 50 cents in the dollar without a chance of 
redeeming it. That paper was not, in my opinion, a commercial 
or bancal effect, subject to fluctuations or arbitrary valuations. It evi- 
dently represented a positive credit against both the Mexican and the 
American governments, solemnly acknowledged by them, in virtue of 
a public treaty, a compromise, a judicial award, a final, unappealable, 

" unaccountable that they have not been sent), I will answer with my head to 
" have it arranged, and a much better arrangement made than that of the Conven- 
" tion, in one moment. If any thing defeats this, it will be the delay in present- 

" ing the claims I repeat the most positive assurance that, in 

" a month, I can arrange the matter of the awards as well as the pending claims. 

" If it is true that those in whose favor awards have been made, 

" are sacrificing them at the rate that I have heard— you are authorized in my 
" name to advise them against such sacrifices. I regard the paper quite as good 
" as any other government paper &c." 



38 

irrevocable arbitration, and, of course, virtually under the special guar- 
anty and responsahilily of the United States in favor of her own citizens, 
and actually bearing, as a living productive capital, the mterest of 8 per 
ct. per annum, from the day of the award, according to the letter of the 
treaty. I did not doubt, therefore, that such paper would soon become 
saleable at par, or even at a premium. An American minister plenipo- 
tentiary. Gen. Thompson, had already been sent to Mexico, and every- 
body thought that among his instructions from our State Department, he 
had received that of asking there the immediate payment of the awards, 
both capital and interest, due by that government. It was, then, reason- 
ably to be expected that, within two or three months, our Mexican cer- 
tificates would have been considered as good as any other government 
paper of the United States. In this persuasion, frustrated afterwards 
by the black cabals of our illustrioiis statesman Daniel Webster, I felt 
sure to be able to rescue in a short time my Mexican certificates from 
the Senator's grasp. 

Accordingly, on the 6th of April, Mad. Santangelo (as I was sick), in 
company with Mr. Eugene Plunkett, a young gentleman, who had ac- 
companied me from New Orleans, to assist me in the prosecution of my 
claims in Washington, went to see Mr. Mc Roberts, and not the Senator 
Mc Roberts, at his lodgings, who received them most courteously. He 
being raarried, and having his wife with him, I did not think it indeli- 
cate to send mine to transact business with him in my name. 

Mad. S. began her conversation by endeavoring to obtain from Mc 
Roberts a term of four or six months for the rescue of the certificates, 
on which she agreed to receive an advance of only 25 cents on the dol- 
lar ; to which he opposed that he could not grant a longer term than 
two months, in view of the probability of Congress adjourning early in 
June following, and the necessity for his then leaving for Illinois : thus 
openly insinuating that should Congress adjourn later, he would have 
no objection to extend the proposed term of two months as long as prac- 
ticable. 

Mad. S. however, on this first application to that gentleman, wished 
to negotiate but a small certificate of $200, on which she received $50, 
together with his written obligation as follows : 

" I have bought of Mr. O. de Santangelo a certificate issued under 
the Mexican convention, No. 1159, dated 26th march 1842, signed T. 
L. Smith, for two hundred dollars — but I agree that if he pays me fifty 
dollars within two months from this date, with interest at 6 per ct. per 
annum, I will transfer him said certificate— Samuel Mc Roberts — April 
6, 1842." (doc. 3.) 

On this occasion the Senator stated to Mad. S. that he could employ 
a sum of $750 in buying Mexican scrip, in behalf of some wards to 
whom the money belonged, and accordingly offered her the continua- 
tion of his services. Mr. Plunkett witnessed the whole transaction. 

On my reading the above receipt and obligation of Mc Roberts, I was 
at first struck by the words: "/ have bought" &c., for I intended to 
contract a loan on and not a sale of my certificate ; but on observing 
that Mc Roberts had agreed to transfer me said certificate if within two 
months I returned him his $50 with the honest interest of 6 per ct. per 
annum, I Avas satisfied with its tenor. To buy under the obligation of 
re-selling the thing bought within a stated term on interest, or to lend 



39 

under the obligation for the borrower to rescue the tiling pledged with" 
in a stated term, and pay interest for it, or forfeit it, was identically the 
same. It could be said, however, that, as there is in law no such thing 
as a furchase ivith interest, nor a perfect sale until the pact of re-emp- 
tion is extinct, the contract with Mc Roberts was, properly speaking, a 
loan and not a sale : but he would rather appear a buyer than a money' 
lender, that is all ; there was no harm in this, and I never complained 
of it. 

On the same terms I received from Mc Roberts two other advances 
of money, of $125, on the 15th of April, on a certificate of $500, (doc. 4.) 
and of $253,50, on the 23d of the same month, on another certificate of 
$1000. (doc. 5.) 

On the 28th of said month I received from Mc Roberts the follow- 
ing note: 

" If Mr. Santangelo has two notes of five hundred dollars, they would 
be more convenient than one of a thousand — I am willing to purchase 
five hundred dollars this evening at 25 cents to the dollar as before." 
(doc. 6.) 

His Honor was obeyed. A certificate of $500 was sent him in the 
evening of that very day, on which I received $125. (doc. 7.) 

Thus I received the total sum of $553,50 on four certificates to the 
amount of $2200 ; with this difference, however, that only for the res- 
cue of the first certificate of $200 was I granted two months time, that 
is, from the 6th of April to the 6th of Jtine ; whilst, as to the others, on 
which I received posterior advances on the 15th, 23d, and 28th of that 
month, they were likewise to be rescued on the 6th of June, and not 
later, for the same alleged reason that " Congress would adjourn on 
OR ABOUT THAT PERIOD, and then he, Mc Roberts, must return to Illinois. 

Here I deem it necessary to remark, that either Mad. Santangelo, or 
Mr. Plunkett, or both together, were constantly the negotiators of my 
scrip with Mc Roberts. I never visited, nor saw him. His willingness 
to acquire my scrip is evinced, less by their testimony, than by his own 
abovementioned note (doc. 6.) : and his eagerness for Mad, S, to con- 
tinue her applications for money to him, was pushed even to flattery. 
He repeatedly told her he had the highest opinion of my talents, the 
warmest desire to make my personal acquaintance, and the greatest 
admiration of my letters to president Tyler, which I was at that period 
publishing in the " Index" of the city (a). Mad. S. has authorized me 
to declare to the court that «he is ready to confirm these facts under 
oath. 

But, early in the following month of May, from what I heard about 
the conduct of the Secretary of State, touching Mexico and the American 
Claims, I began to apprehend that no steps had been taken to procure 
their payment, and that consequently, I would be unable to redeem on 
the 6th of June, my certificates left with Mc Roberts. I was then 
threatened with their forfeiture in his favor, and consequently with a loss 
of $1646 50. To avert this danger I contracted a loan for $600 with 
the same Dr. Jones, who had already had proofs of my punctuality. He 
promised to lend me that sum on the Isl day of June following, on a 
promissory note payable six riionths after date, with the usual interest 

(a) See note (f) page 36. 



40 

of 5 per cent, per month, and the collateral security of four times the 
value in Mexican scrip ! ! ! This contract was also made on my part 
through Mr. Plunkett and Mad. Santangelo. 

Whilst resting on the promise of Doctor Jones, a note was received 
from him, dated 26th of May, and stating that " he had just received 
from New York a call for the immediate payment of %5Q0, which pre- 
vented him from making me the proposed loan (doc. 8.) ; a loan, which 
was not merely proposed but most solemnly contracted. 

This disappointment, evidently the result of a mysterious intrigue, 
made me indignant. I immediately returned the honest Doctor a pru- 
dent answer simply recalling him to a sentiment of honor, (doc. 9.) No 

reply, no apology, but a contemptuous silence I then treated him as 

he deserved, (doc. 10.) 

But it was now generally known that Congress, owing to the embar- 
rassments into which it had been thrown by the Executive's Vetoes, 
could not adjourn before August or September, I then had a reason to 
obtain from Mc Roberts a delay to enable me to procure from some 
other quarter the necessary means to rescue my certificates, since the 
only reason for which he had limited the first short term oi two months 
to the 6th of June, was the supposed adjournment of Congress on or 
about that period. I then, with full confidence in his uprightness, deli- 
cacy and equity, addressed to him the following lines: 

" Washington, May 27th 1842— Dear Sir— From the enclosed (a copy 
of my last note to Jones) you will perceive that I am the victim of an 
infamous trick. Still I am endeavoring to procure the necessary means 
to release my certificates, on which you had the goodness to advance 
me f 550 — At all events you will have no objection, I presume, to allow 
me one month more to procure the money from some other quarter. 
Your ivards will sufi^er nothing from this indulgence ; and in all cases I 
offer you an interest of five per cent, for one month, or any other interest 
you may judge proper. No doubt Congress will not adjourn before 
July next, and you will be here to receive the money due for my certi- 
ficates. Your politeness will be remembered Avith gratitude by — Your 
most obedient Servant — Santangelo — To Hon. Samuel Mc Roberts, 
Senator, &c. &c. &c." (doc. 11.) 

This letter has never been made known by the worthy Senator. Yet 
it was on its tenor he grounded his declaration of war. Hoping for no 
advantage in a competition of urbanity, and fearing to lose his prey by 
granting the requested mdulgence of o?ie month, he resolved to get rid 
at once of all importunity by resorting to the rude answer following : 

"Washington city. May 28th 1842 — Sir — Your letter is received. I 
purchased the certificates of you for the benefit of several minors, of 
which you were apprized. Since I made the purchase of you, I have 
been offered any amount of similar certificates by different persons (a), 
but have declined to take any more, as the immediate relations of the 
children think the amount I have purchased is as much as is proper to 
RISK. As I have reported the purchase and the terms to the relatione 
of the minors, I of course decline to make any change in the terms of 

(a) In fact, I was not the only claimant on Mexico forced by the culpable aban- 
donment of our govenrnment to" lose 75 cents on each dollar of our awarded indem- 
nities. 



the purchase — ^Very respectfully your obedient Servant — Samuel Mg 
Roberts— Mr. Santangelo— Washington City." (doc 12.) 

What had I to do with his wards^ minors, and children, and their re- 
lations ? To what purpose did he mention to me the offers of other 
persons ? I only solicited one month's time for the redemption of my 
scrip, which he could not honestly refuse, he knowing as a member of 
Congress better than any body else, tlie indubitable protraction of its 
adjournment. As a sensible man, he could not, on the other hand, be 
indifferent to the fact that my actual inability to redeem my certificates, 
far from being voluntary, was but the effect of an unexpected disap- 
pointment from a treacherous usurer. He knew that I had been con- 
tented to receive from him only 25 cents on the dollar in Mexican certifi- 
cates, /o?- the sake of a chance to redeem them, at a period when, the inac- 
tion of the Executive in demanding their payment from Mexico not being 
generally known, I could have sold them at auction at the same price 
that he had given for them [doc. 2]. Lastly, as a zealous agent for his 
real or supposed wards, he could never be reproached with granting me 
the short delay I had solicited, as I had offered for this indulgence an 
interest, or gratification, which he never could expect from any other 
employment of the money. His rude refusal, grounded on the sole rea- 
son of his " having reported the -purchase and the terms to the supposed 
relations of the minors," was then evidently not only unfair but dishon- 
est; and had it come from a common stock-jobber,, I would have left 
it unnoticed; but, from a person in whom, on account of his public sta- 
tion, I ought to presume to find some moral importance, I could not suf- 
fer to be treated as an imbecile quidam. I saw, altogether, in that re- 
fusal, an UNGENTLEMANLY TRICE, and wrote : 

" Washington, June 1st, 1842 — Hon. Samuel Mc Roberts — Sir — Your 
unsatisfactory note of the 28th ultimo has come to hand. I must give you 
my views on the subject. Unexpected disappointments obliged me, in 
April last, to borrow from you $550 on certificates of credit delivered to 
me, as a claimant on Mexico, by our Treasury Department, to the 
amount of $2,200, under the condition of forfeiting them if not rescued 
on or before the 6th instant. However disastrous to me, dishonorable 
to you, and reproved by law were these terms, I respected them and 
your name. I solely complained of my own fate, and of the criminal 
course pursued by our Government in its relations with Mexico. Yet, 
I endeavoured to find means for the recovery of my ceruficates on the 
period agreed upon, and found a Doctor T. P. Jones, who most faithfxil- 
ly promised me $600 on the 1st of this month, at five per cent, interest 
monthly, under the security of four times the value in said certificates, 
to be forfeited if not redeemed within six months. Relying on his doc- 
toral word, I refrained from all other enquiries. But, on his having 
villanously retracted it, too late for me to procure other means, I im- 
plored from you, under date of the 27th ultimo, one month delay, offer- 
ing not merely five per cent, but any other interest you were pleased to 
ask. This you have inexorably declined under the plea that you had 
run the risk in the purchase of my certificates, as a charge of some mi- 
nors, to whose relations you had reported the whole transaction &c. 

" Risk, Sir ? Is this the language of a Senator of the United States? 
What RISK ? Would you regard as doubtful the duty of your Govern- 
ment to comply with its convention with Mexico, approved by the Sen- 

6 



42 

ate ? Are you not obliged to defend the honor of your country, the 
rights of your citizens, the sovereignty of your body, against all viola- 
tions of the Executive ? Would the national legislature regard the cer- 
tificates of the national Treasury, as tricks ? 

" Whether your refusal be, or not, the result of a secret understand- 
ing between you and Jones; whether you act for yourselt or your mi- 
nors, I SHALL NOT (consistent as I am with my myself in all my trans- 
actions) OBJECT TO OUR TERMS. But, before the tribunal of honor and 
morality, your refusal of the delay of one month, in spite of the ex- 
orbitant interest proposed, is manifestly unjustifiable. It only shows 
your deliberate intention of snatching, j^er /as vel ne/as, $1650 from 
my pocket. It becomes still more ungenerous, and even villanous, 
in considering our respective characters and standing: you, an aged 
learned gentleman, a public man, a lawgiver ; I, a forsaken foreign- 
er, an emigrant, a refugee, a septuagenary, a sufferer at the hand of 
Mexico for the sole and only motive of my advocating there, without 
oflFending that government at all, the interests, rights and honor of my 
adopted country ! ! ! 

" In this state of things, should you persist in your refusal, you will 
find that I am as grateful for favors, as regardless of all considerations 
and consequences in warning honest people agamst loanton injuries and 
reckless knavery, however respectable be its mask — I am respectfully — 
your most obedient servant — Santangelo." (doc. 13). 

My consciousness of being in the right, and of having returned to my 
senator by no means an improper answer) was such that I thought it to 
be my duty to send a copy of it to ihe president of the United States 
(doc. 14), and an other to the president of the Senate (doc 15), explain- 
ing my motives. 

The Senator was embarrassed. To leave my note unanswered was 
to acknowledge his wrong. To grant my request was to leave his cot- 
etousness uncontented. To make an apology was to mortify his pride. 
To hope for a legal revenge was a folly. To ask a chivalric satisfaction 
was rather dangerous .... Quid agendum ? A master stroke. He con- 
ceived the idea of falling on me suddenly, armed with the thunders of 
an insulting and defamatory letter, hoping that his imperious tone and 
senatorial respectability would terrify me to death. But, at the same 
time, having read in the " National Intelligencer" of the first of June 
that the Mexican certificates were selling in New York at six and a 
half cents on the dollar, he would now appear generously disposed to 
grant the delay I had solicited, though in such terms and under such 
conditions as to keep his word, or not, as might best suit his con- 
venience. Thus by frightening me, on the one hand, with his venera- 
ble outrages, and by depriving me, on the other, of all reason of com- 
plaining of his first refusal, he hoped to shut my mouth without de- 
priving himself of the means of retaining, at all events, the possession 
of my certificates I 

In execution of this ixxAj virtuous and skilful plan, he wrote me a let- 
ter, wherein, to avoid the charge of a ivanton attack, and give it the 
plausible character of a provoked production, he began by makmg a ma- 
lignant interpretation of these last words of my letter : 

" Should you persist in your refusal, you will find that I am as gratefiil 
for favors, as regardless of all considerations and consequences in warn- 
ing honest people against wanton injuries, and reckless knavery^'' &c. 



43 

He then exclaimed in his letter : 

" You threaten to warn the pMic against me, and to falsely charge 
me Vf'iih. fraud" &c. 

I had neither spoken of him, of the puhlic, of fraud, nor of any publi- 
cation whatever. The partial indication of honest people did not em- 
brace the public in general, nor is the word knavery the exclusive sy- 
noym of fraud. By honest people I evidently intended such claimants 
on Mexico as could become the -^dctims of his avarice, like myself; and 
to the diction "reckless knavery," no English scholar would have given, 
in the case, the meaning of /raw(^, but of a careless disposition to act 
ungentlemanly. All this did not evince in me the least design of mak- 
ing publications. 

But, drawing motives of resentment from his own gratuitous interpre- 
tations, the Senator thought himself authorized to indulge in his letter 
in all manner of outrages, threats and slanders. He began by charging 
me with falsehoods, without indicating any. Then he represented 
our past transactions under false colours, disfiguring some facts, deny- 
ing, suppressing and inventing others at pleasure, drawing consequen- 
ces utterly at variance with the premises, and introducing episodes cal- 
culated to show his own bonhomie, although not having the remotest 
reference to the only point in question, the delay of one month, which 
I had a right to ask, and he had immorally refused. Then, again, he 
reproached me with having maliciously given to his purchase of my 
certificates the name of a loa7i, whilst I had never made and could not 
make any intentional or rational distinction between selling with the 
condition of re-purchasing at a stated period by paying interest, or for- 
feiting the thing sold, and borrowing on pledge, with interest, and the 
condition of rescuing the thing pledged, also within a stated period, or 
forfeiting it : a distinction, on the other hand, from which I could by 
no means ewpect'^ the least advantage, for nothing could compel him, 
either as a purchaser or a lender, to return the thing sold or pledged in 
his possession, without his having previously received all that was due 
to him, capital and interest. But, he wanted to, deduce from this sup- 
posed malicious distinction on my part, that my object was not merely 
to ask one month of delay, as I did, for the rescue of my certificates ; 
but to induce him, by calling his purchase a loan, to give me other de- 
lays/rom month to month ; as if it were not in his own power to grant, 
or not, such other hypothetical delays, according to his own will and 
pleasure. He wanted to insinuate that, by obtaining new delays, I 
would eitheir claim my certificates " should Mexico furnish funds," or, 
if not, leave them at his charge ! ! ! The world will be astonished in 
remarking in the next point of this exposition, that from these punchin- 
ello-like puns, from this laughable manner of criminating my past, pres- 
ent and future possible or impossible thoughts, the realization of which 
ought, in all cases, depend entirely upon his own assert, he drew his 
only and sole reason for accusing me of an attempt to carry out a 

SWINDLING OPERATION BY A DEVICE AND A COMPLICATION OF CRIMES 

WHOLLY NEW IN OUR COUNTRY ! ! ! Let US coutiiiue, for the present, 
the narrative of facts. He, thus, for the double purpose of giving to 
the eyes of the credulous public a colour of honesty to his own dishon- 
esty, and silence all my possible complaints, went on in his letter, 
overloading me with all manner of insults and slanders. Hence his re- 



Deated imputations oi falsehood ; his designating me as ^low, hase aa<3 
ClTman ; his threat to bring me within the spirit oUlxecrimrnal 
, P rthTonuntw • his charo-ino- me wiih an act of open villianny (a 
^rdlm\rororthogrthf)/hisin 

that "my being an oZ^ mari, 2. foreigner, ^refugee 1^. ^^i^^ «°""t/J^' 
!,.rWthatis xoas) not mv oxAv misfortunes that is, misfortune), \ixxi 
Zt IhlreZerience in other things less creditable to my honok or 
^RACITX?' hfs Sculing "the services I had rendered m Mexico to 
SeUnSd States by defending there her interests, rights and honor 

^ But to this heap of mad infamies, the noble Senator wanted al^o to 
ndd accordincr to his plan, some proof of ^merosiZ?/. Then, immem 
aSV after Wl having exclaimed : " / null not change the terms upon 
wMch I purchied these certificates, and I will not depart from that de- 
Smbatfon •" and forgetful of his alleged inability to m^keany change 
rZsetTrms on accost of having "reported the purchase and the 
terms to the relations of the minors," becomes on with this tirade. 
"I do not believe you intend or desire to pay me twenty-five cents for 
certificates which nobody will now buy, and which are sold in New 
York for six and a half cents"— and for this reason, " to test my smceri- 
tv " he offered the delay I was urging for, under the condition " either 
to send him, yviihin four days, a xvrMen oMigation%\gXie(ihY any re- 
sponsible person, as security that I would pay him, not tire five per 
cent., as I boastmgly offered, but only tioo percent, [for he thought that 
two per cent, per month was not a usury ! ! !] on the money he had 
paid me, the certificates to be retained by him, thus giving me an op- 
portunity of purchasing them on the 6th of July next; or "to sell 
and deliver me, at once, my certificates, if I sent him, also within ^owr 
rfflws, a note payable in bank on the 6th of July next, endorsed so that 
the bank would engage to pay him the money at that time. " 

This letter, whilst proposing an arrangement which indispensably 
required a continuation of my correspondence with him, was terminat- 
ed by this haughty and eccentric order : 

" This closes all correspondence between us. If you comply with 
any of the propositions, you can send any person you please to transact 
the business," (doc. 16). 

To correspond through a person, and not to correspond at all, was 
identically the same thing with our learned Senator ! 

This letter, this pot-pourri of insults, generosityy arrogance, contra- 
dictions and nonsense, consisting of seven written pages, signed "Sam- 
uel Mc Roberts/' and dated the 4th of June, was received in the after- 
noon of the 5th, by Mad. Santangelo whilst I was taking my siesta. 
To know whether it contained any thing which required immediate 
attention, not to disturb unnecessarily my nap, she unsealed it, read 
it, and prudently concluded that it should not be presented to me. 
It was necessary, however, to apprize me of the granted delay, and 
of the conditions under which it was granted. She then told me, 
onmyleavingthebed-room, that she had received from the Senator a ver- 
bal message purporting that " I could rescue my certificates on or be- 
fore the 6th of July next, provided that I sent him, within four days, a 
written obligation of a responsible person, as security that I would pay 
him two per cent, on the money I had received ; or that he would im- 



45 

mediately return me the certificates if, within four days, I would give 
him a note payable in bank on the 6th of July for the money I owed" 
&c. 

Quite unsuspecting what was really passing, and finding both the 
offer kind and the conditions fair, I unhesitatingly adopted the first of 
them ; and on the following day, the 6thj supposing that it would be 
more agreeable to Mc Roberts to receive in ready cash, than in a loritten 
obligation, the two per cent, he asked) I sent him, through Mr. E. Plun- 
kett eleven dollars, the amount of the interest, at said rate of 2 per cent, 
for the raonih granted, on the sum of $553,50 which I had received 
on my certificates for $2200. Mr. Plunkett was also the bearer of the 
following polite note addressed by Mad. S. without my knowledge, to 
the Senator : 

" Washington, June 6th, 1842 — Sir — A note dated the 4th instant, 
was yesterday, the 5th, at 6 o'clock, P. M. left at the door of my lodging, 
handed to a little girl of the house, by whom it was handed to m.e, 
whilst my husband was taking his usual afternoon nap. From the 
handwriting of the superscription and the blue ink, I knew the note 
came from you, I opened it, read it, and finding it unfit to be presented 
to Mr. Santangelo, I concealed it. But, as it was necessary that I 
should inform him of the arrangement you proposed, namely, "either 
to send you a written obligation signed by any responsible man as secu- 
rity to pay you two per cent, on the money paid to him by you, thus 
giving him an opportunity of re-purchasing the certificates on the 6th of 
July next, at what you had paid for them," or " to sell and deliver him 
the certificates at once, if he will, within four days, send you a note 
payable in bank on the 6th of July next, endorsed so that the bank will 
engage to pay you the money at that time:" — Therefore I have told 
Mr. Santangelo that you had sent me a polite verbal message to that 
effect, and he, having found your proposal extremely just, now sends 
you, through Mr. Plunkett, eleven dollars, which is the interest you 
ask; thus there is no necessity of any " written obligation," agreeing 
that if on the 6th of July next he shall not have sent you what you paid 
for the certificates, you shall be at liberty to dispose of them as your 
own property — Your most obedient — Mart de A. Santangelo — Hon, 
Samuel Mc Pi,obekts" — (doc. 17). 

This letter has never appeared in any of Mc Roberts's defensive or 
offensive writings or publications 

The honorable Senator, always consistent with himself, would neither 
receive the eleven dollars, mysteriously preferring a " written obligation" 
to cash, nor the note of Mad. Santangelo; no doubt a refmement of gal- 
lantry on his part, but to me a new provocation when I became ac- 
quainted with it. The note was then read to him by the bearer him- 
self, and His Honor, ex causa scientioe, declared his disbelief of the fact 
of his letter having been concealed from me. Mad, Santangelo was, 
therefore, a liar in the eyes of the chivalric Senator. 

On the same day I procured the " written obligation" so strongly in- 
sisted upon. It was given me by Mr. Chas. J. Nourse, as follows : 

" Washington, June 6th, 1842 — I, Charles J, Nourse have received 
from Mr. O. de A. Santangelo eleven dollars, which I promise to pay 
to Mr. Samuel Mc Roberts, or order, on the 6th of July 1 842, if on or 
before that time Mr. Santangelo does not re-purchase of Mr. Mc Roberts 



46 

four Certificates issued under the Convention with Mexico of the Uth 
of April, 1839, amounting in all to twenty-two hundred dollars, which 
in the month of April of the present year, Mr. Santangelo sold to the 
said Mc Roberts for the sum of five hundred and fifty dollars— Chas. J. 
Nourse" (doc. 18.) 

Every body would now believe that, on my having complied, on the 
same day 6th of Juae (the time first agreed upon for the release of ray 
Certificates) Avith the condition under which the Senator had offered 
the prolongation of that term to the 6th of July, the affair was entirely 
settled. It Avas not so. The Senator had now read in the " Index" of 
the same day 6th of June, the information that the Mexican Certificates 
were selling in New York at from 55 to 58 cents to the dollar (a), and 
had accordingly, resolved to break his promise under some pretext or 
other. The first term of the 6th of June had already expired ; he now 
Avanted to let also pass in vain transactions lh.e four ^ays, within which 
he had required of me the "written obligation of a responsible person," 
as a condition sine qua 7ion of the granted delay to the 6th of July; and 
then become the absolute possessor of the Certificates^ throwing on me 
the blame of not having availed of his magnificent oiTer ! ! ! 

Accordingly, when on the 7th of June Mr. Plunkett brought to him 
the " Avritten obligation" of Mr. Nourse, he found it did not conform 
with his Avishes, and exacted another, wherein Mr. Nourse should de- 
clare that, whether Ire-purchased my Certificates on the 6th of July, or 
not, Mr. Nourse should always pay him the interest ofiivo per cent. 

On the 8th Mr. Nourse had the kindness to sign a second obligation, 
under the same date as the first one, in the following terms: 

" Washington, June 6th, 1842 — I have received from 0. de A. San- 
tangelo eleven dollars, which I promise to pay to Mr. Samuel Mc Rob- 
berts, or order, on the 6th of July, 1842 ; the said sum being a considera- 
tion paid by Mr. Santangelo to Mr. Mc Roberts for the privilege of re- 
purchasing, on or before the 6th of July next, from Mc Roberts four Cer- 
tificates issued under the Mexican treaty of the 11th of April, 1839, 
amounting to $2200, Avhich were sold in the month of April, 1842 by 
Mr. Santangelo to Mr. Mc Roberts for the sum of five hundred and fifty- 
three dollars, sixty-two cents — Chas. J. Nourse — $11 — " (doc. 19). 

DCT^ No notice was ever taken by the Senator of these Nourse's obli- 
gations, in any of his Avritings. 

On the 9th Mr. Plunkett paid his fourth visit to the Senator, certain 
that the above second " obligation^'' of Nourse, of which he was the 
bearer, and which had been dictated by Mc Roberts himself, would 
leave no room for further objections. The Senator, however, was long 
before prepared to cavil against the compliance with his own engage- 
ment. He began by rudely receiving Mr. Plunkett (in the anti-chamber 
of the Senate), and then, looking Avilh contempt at the document pre- 
sented to him, would dispatch Mr. Plunkett still more rudely, without 
expressing any acceptance or opinion whatever on the matter ; and on 
Mr. Plunkett having asked a receipt of that obligation, he roundly re- 
fused to give any. Still a receipt Avas indispensable both to evince that 
I had complied Avith the condition under which the term of the 6th of 



(a) This number of the "Index" will be found in my " Original documents" 
under the No. 61. 



47 

July had been granted to me, and that Mr. Plunkett had fulfilled his 
mission agreeably to my instructions. But, how could the candid Sena- 
tor furnish me with an evidence of his having granted what he never 
intended to grant? Instead of a receipt, he offered the testimony of a 
door-keeper, by the name of Bassett, who happened to stand in sight of 
the contracting parties, and who was as unknown to Mr. Plunkett, as 
utterly unacquainted with the matter in discussion. Plunkett, under- 
stood the intrigue, retired in disgust, returned the " obligation" to 
Nourse, and came to declare to me that he would have nothing else to 
do with Mc Roberts. I likewise took the resolution of forgetting at 
once his name and my sacrificed Scrip. 

Whilst things were in this state, I found by a mere chance, on the 
21st of June, in a band-box, the letter of the 4th addressed by Mc Rob- 
etrs to me, concealed by Mad. Santangelo from me, and of which I have 
related here the outrageous contents. In my anger, more easily to be 
imagined than expressed, I committed the injustice of reproaching my 
virtuous wife for an action which I ought to admire. As a consequence 
of this discovery, I was also apprized of the kind letter written by her 
to the worthy Senator, and by him so gallantly rejected. From several 
members of Congress, whose names I shall never make known, I was 
informed of the decided immorality of my man. I had also known that 
a horrible expose of his private and public character, principles and acts 
had been published some time ago by the editor of the Louisville Jour- 
nal (doc. 47) — I had just read in the Weekly New York Herald of the 
17th of June (doc. 20) that on the 13th of same month he had been 
charged wi\h. falsehood by one of his colleagues in the Senate, which 
report he never contradicted. But his letter of the 4th of June show 
me now in him the assassin of my personal honor and character, and 
this I had not strength enough to let pass unpunished. Moral suscepti- 
bilities are not equal amongst men. The diversity unavoidably arises 
from that of tempers, degree of civilization, social rank, education, ex- 
tent of knowledge, as from the various pursuits of life, associations 
formed, manner and habits contracted &c. The very same insulting 
epithet, quite indifferent to some, proves highly offensive to others. 
Honor, for instance, is a nonsensical word with many a man ; it has 
with certain people but an eventual importance ; and it is to a few priv- 
ileged souls, everything. I was unfortunately born in a class where 
HONOR is the most vital element of social life, and lived thirty-four years 
in another, where honor essentially has, and must have the preference 
over all the other human passions and interests. I mean to say that I 
have been thirty-four years a soldier. Had not honor such a value 
among soldiers, it would be inexplicable how millions of reasonable be- 
ings could remain under the despotic command of one single and not 
often reasonable being, always ready to encounter, not merely in silent 
patience, but with the most sanguine alacrity, all sorts of sufferings, and 
even death, in defence of a cause which is not theirs, and with which 
they are oftentimes utterly unacquainted. A talented and truly upright 
magistrate should therefore take into serious consideration those diversi- 
ties, to graduate with no less justice than equity, the imputability of 
those re-actions which, being prompted by defaming and irresistible 
provocations, should be coolly and carefully sifted and scrutinized under 
all their excusable and extenuating circumstances and particulars. 



48 

Samuel Mc Roberts had now struck at my moral character and civil 
life a deadly blow. There was now no longer question of Mexican scrip, 
but of WOUNDED HONOR, But law could not revenge it, for his libellous 
letter, although confidently shown to all his friends, colleagues and ac- 
quaintances, had not been publicly circulated, nor even printed. My 
sword could not be resorted to, for he would have infallibly placed my 
challenge in the hands of a justice. No redress was then possible to 
me, much less against a man intrenched behind a senatorial bulwark, 
and relying on powerful protections, lavished, if not on his personal 
merits, certainly on his political dignity, no matter how he became in- 
vested with it. I then resolved to give myself the satisfaction of in- 
forming him, privately, of my sovereign contempt for his person. In 
this only view, and by no means to defame him publicly, I wrote him a 
letter, dated 30th of June, refuting his own defamatory letter, line by 
line, word by word. My only object, I repeat, was to make him feel 
his perfect nullity in my eyes, and then condemn myself to an eternal 
silence with regard to him. My letter (doc. 21) was forwarded to him 
at 9 o'clock, A. M. of the above day ; but it was returned to me unsealed, 
and wrapped in a new cover with a superscription in his own hand- 
writing (doc. 22). This new insult, certainly of the gravest character 
amongst gentlemen, defeated all my moderate designs, and put a limit 
to my patience, for everything is limited in this poor world. I then 
FOR THE FiEST TIME conccivcd the idea of publishing that, not wantonly 
insulting^ buD merely retaliating letter, and sent it forthwith to the 
printing office of Col. Force, for its immediate publication. But on the 
following day, 1st of July, it was returned to me with a note from Mr. 
Haliday, the foreman of that office, informing me that it was impossi- 
ble for Mr. Force, for a week or two, to put that letter in press (doc. 23 
and 29). I then suspended its publication until Mr. Force should have 
been able to have it executed. Availing of this interval, I started on the 
3d of July, for New York, in search of an opportunity to raise some 
money on my unfortunate scrip, and of an English co-laborer in a paper 
which I proposed to edit in Washington, in French and English, under 
the title of " Veritas/' as announced in all the^ newspapers of that 
city, I was so far from the idea of publishing my letter to Mc Roberts 
in New York, that I had left the manuscript among my papers in 
Washington, as we shall soon see, and I would probably not have pub- 
lished it at all, had not a new and extremely revolting provocation from 
my indefatigable assailant, carried my indignation to the highest pitch. 

I arrived in this city on the 5th of July, and on the 8th I received 
from Mr. Plunkett, under date of the 6th, the following communica- 
tion : " This morning two gentlemen called at the house, and enquired 
for me. One of them was Governor Fulton, Senator from Arkansas ; 
the other, whom I do not know, said that he came to enquire, at the re- 
quest of Mr. Mc Roberts, whether the money for the certificates was 
ready, as this was the 6th of the month, and as Mr. Mc Roberts had re- 
ceived a letter from the relations of his wards requesting him to send 
them the certificates. I answered the person who came that from 
what had transpired between Mc Roberts and myself, at our last inter- 
view, I was sure that he considered, as well as myself, that the whole 
affair was at an end, and that, therefore, we had not taken any steps to 
procure the money. He then left me saying he would tell Mr. Mc Rob 



s'fts what I said — I cannot imagine any reason for such action on the 
part of Mc Roberts, except it be a desire to show that he has kindly 
waited another month, although we were under the impression that the 
certificates vf ere forfeited immediately after our last attempt to arrange 
the matter. You, who know the hearts of men better than I do, will 
be better able to arrive at the true cause of this stra?ige action on the 
part of that consummate scoundrel" &c. (doc. 24). 

This letter bears in itself a foil evidence of its correctness. Mr. Plun- 
kett wrote it in Washington the same morning, in which the occurrence 
had taken place. He could not, therefore, have had time to invent a 
story upon instructions received from New York. Nor would he have 
stupidly made a statement at the risk of its being refuted by the testi- 
mony of Governor Fulton, who was present at his colloquy with Beale. 
We will have, moreover, other shining proofs of the mendacity of the 
latter, in the 2d Point of this defensive expose. 

The object of this new manoeuvre, of this fresh offspring of Mc Ro- 
berts' inventive genius, is obvious. He feared the consequences of so 
many provocations on his part, and especially of his contemptuous re- 
jection of my letter of the 30th of June. He wanted now to premon- 
ish himself in time against all possible charges of dishonesty and slan- 
der elicited by himself in his letter of the 4th of that month, and conse- 
quently find witnesses to prove that the final forfeiture of my scrip in 
his possession was to be attributed, not to any breach of promise on his 
part, but to my neglect in rescuing it on the 6th of July, the new term 
granted by his generosity for its redemption. 

From this quintessence of refined malice, and from the actual inter- 
vention of Beale and Senator Fulton in this business, I was induced 
to believe that Mc Roberts was in my absence secretly slandering my 
innocence in justification of his own fraudulent conduct. This last ex- 
citement proved irresistible with me, and determined me to inform, 
through a suitable publication, both his friends and mine in Wash- 
ington, of the intrigue of which I was the victim. I wrote, then, to 
Washington to have immediately forwarded to me in New York my 
original letter of the 30 of June to Mc Roberts, which had been re- 
turned by him with haughty scorn ; and on my having received it on 
or about the 13th of July (doc. 44), I sent it to a printer. Hence the 
appearance of the pamphlet, dated 26th of July, and entitled "A Cir- 
cular to the World," of which I am accused in this prosecution. 

I proposed in said ''Circular" (p. 1) this question: ''Is the honora- 
ble Mc Roberts more honorable than the honorable Mitchell ?" 

And I solved it (p. 14.) thus: 

" The world, to whom this Circular is addressed, Avill easily perceive 
that, if not for the enormitti of the crime-, certainly for the refinement of 
immorality, the honorable Mitchell, lately condemned to the state pris- 
on of New York, is far surpassed by the honorable Mc Roberts, still a 
Senator of the United States!" (doc. 25). 

I would insinuate by this that if there had been a member of Con- 
gress in the House of Representatives, guilty of forgery, there could have 
been an other in the Senate culpable oi immorality, of slander prompt- 
ed by avarice. Are Senators impeccable ? Has not a man slandered by 
a Senator the right of vindicating his own honor ? 

To come to the solution of the above question, I inserted in the " Cir- 

7 



50 

cular" three documents : 1st, my letter to Mc Roberts : 2diy, the tes' 
timony of his having received it, and returned it unsealed, under a new 
cover : 3d, a letter which I addressed, under date of July 16th, to Sena- 
tor Fulton, whom I considered to have been, unknowingly perhaps, a tool 
of the trick, and whom I entreated " to behave nobly, or at least with 
much circumspection, in lending his services to a Samuel Mc Roberts'^ 
Sec. See the " Circular," page 14. 

A conclusion closed the " Circular," demonstrating that " the root of the 
shameful inconveniences in question" was only to be found in the more 
shameful conduct of our Secretary of State, of the Executive, of the gov- 
ernment &c. the whole alleged in defence of the honor and dignity of 
the American nation (doc. 37). 

This Circular being destined exclusively to warn Congress, and other 
individuals in the City of Washington, which had been the scene of 
the quarrel, against Mc Roberts' impositions, I caused only three hun- 
dred copies of it to be printed (doc. 37); which were almost all sent im- 
mediately, through the mail, to that city. 

But, was that " Circular to the World" a libel liaise, scandalous, 
malicious, and defamatory lihel as denounced ? To solve this question 
I shall take for my guide the accusation itself, the very Indictment 
sworn to by the Grand Jury. I could not be more rigorous contra mea 
propria comoda. 

The Indictment begins hj seriously stating that I am of a " wicked 
and malicious mind and disposition." To this gratuitous, uncalled for, 
calumnious, and truly lihelloiis preliminary, and other perfections of 
that instrument, I shall have to submit, in the 3d Point of these Instruc- 
tions, such objections as will tear it, I hope, to pieces. Let us now 
pass in review the charges preferred in it. 

It says : 

1st. — That I provoked Samuel Mc Roberts to commit a breach of the 
peace on the 26th of August, 1842, in this city, with, force and arms, in 
my " Circular to the World," of the 26th of the preceding month 
of July ! 

2d.— That in it I said to Mc Roberts : 

" Your knavery now appeared in my eyes to be so eminently mean 
and dirty that I feared to become polluted by looking at you." 

3d. — That I said to him : 

" True, I am at a loss to get a microscope fit to enable me to run 
after the flying-fighting imperceptible insect, with which I have to 
deal. But the idea of your name being connected, by one of those word- 
ly anomalies for which no man can account, with the title of Senator 
of the United States, has given me strength enough to overcome all 
difficulties. With a Samuel Mc. Roberts half a dozen lashes on the face 
would soon settle the question ; but with a Senator, the living shame of 
an august assembly, I feel the power of other duties. I am^ to follow 
such a course as the honor of the Senate and of the nation represented 
by it, demands," 

4th.— That I said to him : 

" What I now have to tell you, my darling little one, must be pre- 
faced by my stating to you thai he who has already been qualified as an 
ungenerous and villanous being, and charged with wanton injury and 
reckless knavery, as you were in my letter of the 1st instant (June), has 



51 

UQ right to have his insults takea notice- of, until he clears himself of 
■those debasing qualifications, either through a frank apology, or by such 
means as are pointed out by the laws of chivalry and honor. A knave 
cannot offend any body." 

5th. — Thai I said to him : 

" Your jest only proves that you are either a most consummate jadc- 
ass, or a designing author of false imputations." 

6th. — That I said to him : 

" Are you not a knave ?" 

7th. — That I said to him : 

" You truly miserable poltroon," 

8th. — That I said to him : 

" And is the respectability of my promises to be questioned by a man, 
whose offers, promises^ engagements, in the very case nov^r in question, 
have so glaringly turned out to be a heap of the foulest frauds V 

9 th. — That I said to him : 

" Are you a man ? I ask pardon. I thought you were an ourang- 
outang." 

10th. — That I said to him : 

" Do you understand these words : duty, honor, rights, country, sove- 
reignty, &c. you miserable slave of money, certificates, dollars, cents^ 
interest, and of every thing that is mean, dirty, basej vulgar, villanous, 
covetous, sordid, and cowardly V 

11th. — That I said to him : 

" That an igtioramus who applies in the same phrase to the substan- 
tive United States the verb have in the plural, and the singular posses- 
sive pronoun her ; who is fit only to siveep the stairs of the Senate, and 
who evinces his abilities to discharge the high duties of his station only 
by greedily devouring eight dollars per day, is not in need of advice 
from any body, granted." 

12th.— That I said to him : 

" Millions of dollars would never be preferred by me to the extreme 
pleasure of proclaiming you to be a dastardly knave .'" 

13th.— That, on the 26th of August 1842 (the day of my arrest!) 
wiTHFORCE AND AKMS, I published a letter to one William S. Fulton (the 
letter was dated the 16th of July and published the 26th of the same 
month ! ! !) saying : 

" This McEobei'ts must be one of those sriffisans or parvenus, who 
having succeeded to snatch from the credulity of an ignorant mass of 
people in their savage abode, an appointment to a high office, fondly 
believe themselves to be truly endowed with such a high respectability 
of talents and character, as to compel all men, of all classes and nations, 
to admire in silence all their thoughts and doings, even their ridiculous 
presumption, even their criminal insolence (here a sentence is left out 
in the Indictment]. In a country lohere mohocracy is less in honor, this 
Mc Roberts Avould find himself very happy to clean hoots at one dollar 
per month." 

14th.— That, on the 26th of August 1842 (;the day of my arrest, again !) 
WITH FORCE AND ARMS, I published a certain other libel, saying: 

" The world to whom this circular is addressed, will easily perceive 
that, if not for the enormity of the crime, certainly for the refinement 
of immorality, the honorable Mitchell, lately condemned to the state 



52 

prison of New York, is far surpassed by the honorable Mc Roberts, still 
a Senator of the United States" &c. 

A proper classification of these fouriee?i charges will show their true 
and respective imputability. 

The 1st, loth and 14th charges accuse me of provocations v^ith force 
and arms under the same date of the 26th of August ! On that day I 
never left my room ; nor did I see any body but the noble emissaries of 
Mc Roberts in the afternoon, and the constable and Justice Parker in 
the night ! Even the person of Mc Roberts was at that period peri'ectly 
unknown to me ; I had never seen him before. Nor had I ever thought 
of sending him a challenge, for, I confess, I never considered him fit to 
measure his sword with mine, and on the contrary I always felt certain 
that he would have implored the intervention of a magistrate in any 
such business. Yet, /orce ara^ arms .' Is not this a joke, a dream? But, 
provocations ivith force and arms. What does this mean ? Is perhaps 
every deserved or undeserved rebuke through the press a provocation 
with force and arms ? If so, our country would have become a grand 
field of battle since the first proclamation of the freedom of the press 
throughout it. In the 3d point of this writing, however, a suitable 
comment, will be found on this truly whimsical (if not artful), and not 
less illegal imputation. 

Through the 2d, 4th, 6th and 12th charges I am accused to have ap- 
plied the words knave to the person and hiavery to the doings of Mc 
Roberts. True, I shall not deny it. But is not truth given in evidence, 
according to law ? If it is, I have only to remind the Court of that un- 
interrupted series of subterfuges, as before submitted and proved, through 
which my accuser succeeded in becoming the absolute possessor of my 
Scrip. In the next 2d point of these instructions, this truth will be most 
amply and brightly unfolded. 

The 3d charge reproaches me with having made a distinction be- 
tween a Mc Roberts, and the Senator Mc Roberts, he owing to my re- 
spect for the " august assembly," of which he was the " living shame," 

my not having settled all question with him with a lash Was this 

dutiful distinction a sin ? And was, at all events, that imaginary, nay 
bombastic and hypothetical, correction to be considered as a too severe 
punishment for such real offences as had been offered by Mc Roberts, in 
his letter of the 4th of June (see page 47), to my personal honor and 



CHARACTER 



The 11th charge is grounded on my having qualified the senator as an 
ignoramus ; and this truth is not merely proved by the fact of his having 
applied to the sxxbsidinXiYe United States, in the same phrase, the verb 
have in the plural, and the singular possessive pronoun her, as says the 
Indictment; but it results also from many other passages of his writings 
now before the court, as we shall see. Nor did I ever think that litera- 
ry censure about syntax and orthography should be treated as a breach 
of the peace, with /orce and arms, in the United States of America ! 

The 14th charge accuses me with having presented the " honorable" 
Mc Roberts as surpassmg the " honorable Mitchell, not as to the enor- 
mity oftJie crime, but as to a refinement of immorality; and on this score, 
as the difference was doubtless in favor of Mc Roberts, he cannot believe 
himself injured by it. His immorality on the other hand superabund- 



53 

antly evinced in this 1st Point of my Instructions to my counsel; but 
the 2d, 3d and 4th Points following willl say much more on this topic. 

Finally, the 3d, 4th, 5th, 7th, 9lh, lOih, 1 1th and 13th charges men- 
tion va^ue epithets and contemptuous dictions, such as, imperceptible 
insect, living shame of an august assembly, darling little-one, jackass, a 
dastardly knave, poltroon, ourang-outang, slave of money, suffisant, -par- 
venu, fit to sweep stairs, clean boots &c. — The whole of which forms 
emphatically a bouquet de fleurs when compared to the mortal wound 
inflicted on my honor and veracity, and other offences of a not lighter 
caliber, with which I was favored by the dignified Senator in his 
epistle of the 14th of June. 

It is indispensable here to make a remark on a certain expression copied 
in the Indictment from my letter to senator Fulton of the 16th of July, 
and transcribed in my " Circular to the World." I had said in it : " In a 
country where mobocracy is less in honor, this Mc Roberts would find him- 
self veryhappy to clean boots at one dollar per month" — I do not wish to 
be reproached with having applied the name of mobocracy to our happy 
democracy. I used those words as they are every day repeated in all the 
newspapers of the Union, speeches in Congress, and numberless polit- 
ical or philosophical productions from every quarter, and by every class 
of writers, even the most devoted to our inimitable Institutions. That 
is but an emphatic common phrase showing a holy aversion to all such 
popular commotions as turn freedom into licentiousness; and our con- 
tinual mobbish riots, tumultuous elections, charivaries, lynching per- 
formances &c. even in the most polished cities of the empire, justify the 
correctness of that patriotic clamor, intended to hasten the eradication 
of the evil which is, however, by no means ascribable to the people 
themselves or their Institutions, but to neglectful or ignorant adminis- 
trations, under which the most salutary laws are but a dead letter.- 

An other remark of a very different and much more important nature, 
now presents itself How happens it that the rabid framers of the in- 
dictment have overlooked several other resentful invectives of mine in 
my letter to Mc Roberts, not mentioning at all among other things, 
my ideal spitting in his face, page 8, slapping his left meretricious 
cheek, page 9, &c. Is this generosity? I must be allowed to answer, 
no. Such highly outrageous dictions could not be made mention 
of without making known, at the same time, those which had pro- 
voked them ; and this did not suit the Senator^ whose innocence 
ought to appear unspotted This artful generosity should convince the 
court of the necessity of a thorough reading of my " Circular to the 
World," to the Jury, whose religious verdict is to declare my own in- 
nocence, or guilt. 

But, of the Indictment enough for the present. I have quoted it here 
for the sole purpose of drawing from the analysis of the charges con- 
tained in it, the demonstration of my " Circular to the World" being not 
a libel, this being the object of this 1st Point of my Instructions to my 
counsel. The '^Circular is neither /a/se, m«/i«0MS, scandalous or de- 
famatory, as alleged in the Indictment. It contains but truths, and ev- 
ery truth is proved. No scandal can be produced by a correct and rea- 
soned refutation of scandalous attacks. No malice can be attached to 
the indispensable and rightful defence of one's honor. No defamation 
isjeasonably censurable when opposed to highly defaming provocations. 



54 

My counsel will determine, in law, the true characteristics of a libel 
as contemplated by law. I am writing without a single book before 
me, not even a good vocabulary. 



}d POINT. 



In the hypothesis of my '' Circular to the World" being libel- 
lous, its legal effects have been, both de jure and de facto, 
fully destroyed by the accuser himself. 



Falsehood- cannot be justified but by falsehood, nor wrong hut by 
wrong, This is an exemplification of the motto : ahyssus abyssum in- 
vocat ; and this was the course pursued by Samuel Mc Roberts on his 
receiving my " Circular to the "World." He, then, laboring under the par- 
oxysms of a dismal black-choler, consulting but his vindictive passion, 
but feeling at the same time the superiority secured to him by his Amer- 
ican nativity, senatorial standing and party-protection over his victim, 
threw himself, d-corps-perdu, regardless of all dangers, in the breach. 

Fifteen days had already elapsed since the appearance of my " Circu- 
lar to the World" of the 26th of July 1842 (doc. 25), when the Capital 
of the American Union, was, in my absence, presented with a pamphlet 
of sixteen pages, headed : 

" Address of Mr. Mc Roberts of the Senate of the United States, 
IN REPLY to a Publication of O. de Santangelo." 

The pamphlet was dated " Washington city, August 9th 1842," and 
signed: "Samuel Mc Roberts." On its second written page, it was 
addressed " To the Public ;" and on the very title-page the following 
anonymo^is placard was affixed : 

" [C?" We advise the Public to read this Address — they will see, 
sketched by a MASTER HAND, and proved by the highest evidence, 
an attempt of Santangelo to carry out a swindling operation, by a device 
and a complication of crimes wholly new in our country — Mr. Mc Rob- 
erts deserves the thanks of the Public for having exposed one of the 
MOST INFAMOUS VILLAINS, that we have ever read of, in our 
long connexion with the public press." — " Note by the Publisher'''' 
[doc. 26]. 

Who was this publisher ? Ten certificates, lettered from A to J, from 
printers of the Federal District [doc. 30], shoAv that no such publisher is 
there to he found. The whole phraseology, and every word of the pla- 
card, are identically the same as those used throughout the pamphlet. 
On the other hand, who could have become the accomplice of a vile and 
insane calumniator ? Who else, but himself, could have imagined that 
he deserved the thanks of the Public for having so wantonly insulted 
public decency and dignity, and broken public peace ? Who could 
have qualified a Mc Roberts' hand as MASTER HAND, but himself? 
And would any body else, but himself, have dared to stamp, without 



55 

his full assent and consent, such a criminal bill on the very title page 
of his own pamphlet bearing his own signature ? Pshaw ! His as- 
suming on this occasion the a7iom/mous character o{ the " puUisher" 
of that note at once self-praising and vilely slandering, was but one of 
his impostures suggested by that timidity which is the inseparable com- 
panion of unjustifiable crime, and at the same time by the malice of in- 
sinuating that he was not my sole defamer. He wished to give him- 
self an ideal colleague in the performance, and this was, no doubt, a 
master stroke from the master-hand ! 

The "Address," although published in Washington the 9th of Au- 
gust, did not reach me until the 22d of that ixionth. The candid Sena- 
tor had it circulated, as secretly as possible, amongst his colleagues in 
Congress, his friends in the city, his constituents in Illinois, thus wound- 
ing me, and bravely hiding his master-hand. One copy of it was at last 
obtained from a member of Congress, and mailed in Washington for me 
in New York, on the 2st of August, by Mr. E. Plunkett [doc. 45], and 
I successively received from my wife three other copies, coming from 
other members of Congress. 

Here is a short account of this noble production. 

The master hand begins by declaring that my " Circular to the 
World" was but "a tissue of the most unblushing/aZse/iooc/s from be- 
ginning to end" — a mere assertion : a common place with dealers in 
falsehoods. 

Then, to have powerful allies in the contest, he describes me as " the 
same fellow who had been libelling Congress, the Executive and other 
persons, in newspapers, and also in said ' Circular,' in the most vul- 
gar manner." A bare assertion, a common place with trembling im- 
postors. 

Relating afterwards, in the manner best suiting his own designs, the 
course of his transaction with me^ he states that " not knowing wheth- 
er the guardian (of the wards whose money he said he had employed in 
\he jjurchase of my certificates) would approve the investment, he vohcn- 
■ tartly proposed to re-sell them to me on the 6th of June," &c. as if the 
disapproval of the guardian could make the re-purchase obligatory for 
me ! I have already instructed my counsel, in the 1st Point of this writ- 
ing, respecting the manner and the reason why the Senator had limited 
the term for said re-purchase of the 6th of June, against my instances 
for a longer term .... An innocent quiproquo. 

He adds that " on his having received an intimation that I was a 
Base Man, and to be on his guard, he, to avail all misunderstanding, 
had reduced the terms of the purchase to writing upon receiving each 
certificate !" What intimation? from whom ? When ? The first visit 
paid to him by Mr, Santangelo and Mr. Plunkett, was a sudden visit ; 
he did not expect it; his supposed informer could not foresee it; then, 
without knowing whether I Avas a base man, or an Aristides, he ad- 
vanced $50 on a certificate of $200, and delivered a receipt with the 
obligation of re-selling me that certificate on the 6th of June. Was this 
the ivriting made to protect himself against the base man ? Was it not 
on the contrary, made for my own security ? Nay ; did he not overload 
my messengers, on their first application to him, with mark of the ut- 
most respect for them and admiration''' for my person ? Does not, more- 
over, his note of the, 28th of April, (doc. 6) prove his eagerness to buy 



56 

toy certificates even when not offered to him ? Oh Senator ! Oh maS' 
ler-hand ! 

He subjoins that he found in nay letter of the 27th of May (doc. 11) 
" that hint given to him of my infamous character was verified" — My 
letter only asked respectfully one month indulgence for the rescue of 
my certificates, and my only sin had been that instead of saying that 
he had purchased my certificates, I had said, houe fide, that he had ad- 
vanced me money on them ! that is all. I said so, hecause, as we 
have already seen (page 38) I could make no distinction between ad- 
vancing money on a pledge to be rescued at a certain period, by paying 
interest, or to forfeit the thing pledged; and purchasing with a priv- 
ilege to the seller to re-purchase the thing sold, at a stated period, pay- 
ing interest, or to forfeit it — This was the evidence of my infamous 
character. I oppose to this ridiculous slander the unanimous testimony 
of all such distinguished persons, as have had occasion to deal with me 
in Washington [doe. 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 59]— I could refer the Court to 
what the local news-papers, such as the Independent, the National In- 
telligencer, the Index, the Huntress &c. and others of the District, said 
and repeated about my principles and personal character &c. and even 
to what he, himself, the Senator, had a thousand times said to Mad, 
Santangelo and Mr. Plunkett [whilst he was discharging his Senatorial 
functions in acquiring my Mexican Scrip ] about my noble and inde- 
pendent character, and admirable wriiings ! ! ! 

The master hand, however, did not copy in his " Address" my above 
polite letter of the 27th of May, He merely copied his own answer to 
it [doc, 12], which to a reader uninformed of the letter to which that 
answer Avas returned, ought necessarily appear of insufficient import- 
ance to have justly provoked my subsequent reply of the 1st of June, 
copies of which I sent to the President of the United States [doc. 14] 
and to the President of the Senate (doc. 15)— Yet, in his answer, in 
which he had so brutally and so dishonestly refused the delay to which 
I had a just claim, he had not dared to utter the words falsehoods, base 
man, irifamous character &c — ^^all these kind compliments he after- 
wards imagined when engaged in revenging himself against my unan- 
swerable truths. 

He now affirms in his " Address," that " he received my said letter 
of the 1st of June, fJled with, vulgar epithets, threatening to charge him 
with fraud before the public, unless he permitted me to violate rny con- 
tract ;" that " I had premised to that, that he was a Senator of the 
United States, supposing that his station would make him adverse to 
having such a charge made, or to entering into a controversy with an 
Infamous Man, like me, in the newspapers ; and that said threat might 
enable me to accomplish my swindling designs ! " But this letter he 
likewise hid from the public, for, according to his plans, he ought al- 
ways to show only one side of the medal. I have, however, published 
it myself, explained it, refuted his malignant interpretations (see page 
42) ; and certainly not merely -a swindling design, but d^full and com- 
plete swindling performance is what the noble and dignified Senator has 
now to account for before the Court of General Sessions. 

Here he comes to speak of his famous epistle of the 4th of June (re- 
ceived and concealed by Mad. Santangelo) ; and to put it in honor, 
and to make that offspring of his genius venerable in the eyes of the 
fool, he premised to it the following statement : 



57 

*'In the practice of my profession as a lawyer [!] and holding courts 
®f justice [!] for near ifioenzy years [!], and among all the devices to 
SWINDLE and defraud, which I have ever seen unravelled, I have never 
before witnessed a plan so infamous. Even in my reading of the dark 
crimes to be found within the prison walls of Mexico and Europe, I 
have no recollection of having heard of this new mode adopted by this 
DEGRADED BEING Santangelo." 

In this eloquent bombastic tirade, calculated to amaze, or rather to 
humbug the bouches beanies of Gadsby's Hotel, we must now acknowl- 
edge the unsurpassable power of the master-hand. It is only to be won- 
dered at, that so learned a lawyer, judge, Senator, and reader of the 
dark crimes to be found within the prison walls of Mexico and Europe, 
should not have glanced at the history of the. judicial assassinations to 
be found at the bars of both hemispheres, coolly perpetrated by corrupt, 
ignorant, superstitious, overbearing, unjust, stupid, cruel, venal and ser- 
vile depositaries of the judiciary power ! 

After such preliminaries, His Honor copies in toto, in his " Address" 
his above mentioned letter of the 4th of June [doc. 16], in which he had 
granted [for his own benefit and under conditions that he intended to 
«lude] the delay I had solicited, and at the same time closed his corres- 
pondence with me [see page 44]. On this subject he exclaims in his 
•"Address :" 

" A day or two afterwards, a worthless fellow, by the name of 
Eugene Plunkett, who plays understrapper for Santangelo and 
WIFE, called and said he had a letter from Santangelo's wife. I replied 
that I would receive no letters from them (the correspondence being 
closed !). He (Plunkett) then broke open the letter [doc 17], and read 
it, and said that she had received my letter [of the 4th of June], but 
had concealed it from Santangelo, not thinking it very palitable [new 
orthography], it would seem, for a man of such delicate feeling, and 
that he [Plunkett] was to try and arrange the business— I rej)lied that, 
as to the letter having been kept from Santangelo, I believed it to be 

false " 

Here we have, before the court and the publics in Mr. Plunkett a 
WORTHLESS FELLOW, an UNDERSTRAPPER, and iu Madam Sautaugelo a 

LIAR ! 

But his letter of the 4th of June, notwithstanding its closing all cor- 
respondence, had opened a new negotiation, and consequently a new 
correspondence. It intimated that " I could obtain the delay I had so- 
licited, if I sent him, within four days, a written obligation, signed by 
any responsible man, as security that I would pay two per cent, on the 
money I had received [$553,50] on my certificates ; or that I could re- 
ceive them at once, if I sent him, within four days, a note payable in 

bank on the 6th of July next, endorsed &c " On my learning this 

from Mad. Santangelo, who had told me she had received, a verbal mes- 
sage ad hoc [see page 44], I adopted the first proposition, and accord- 
ingly I sent to him, on the 6th of June, first the amount of the inter- 
est in cash, and then, on his unaccountably refusing the cash [for this 
would have proved to him an obligatory bond], the desired written obli- 
gation from Mr. Charles Nourse [doc. IS] ; and on his having found 
fault also with this obligation, I sent him another as desired by him 
[doc. 19] ; and finally, on his having grossly and maliciously refused a 



58 

receipt of that instrument, indispensable to secure the fulfilment of his 
promise, this second negotiation was entirely broken, and my Mexican 
scrip was lost [see pages 46 to 47]. Who is the swindle?- ? 

The honorable Senator, however, in his " Address" represents this 
affair under a quite different aspect. Purposely overlooking my full com- 
pliance with his conditions by sending him the written obligation as 
dictated by himself, he asserts : 

" He [Plunkett] afterwards called but brought 710 note to be placed in 
bank, by which he could at once receive that scrip ! ! !" What Note ? 
What Bank ? Had I ever offered a note payable in bank ? Had I not 
complied Avith one of the two conditions proposed by him, and left to 
my option ? Was not this another master piece of impudence 
from the Master-hand ? Who is the swindler ? 

But, he adds : 

" After various Subterfuges [his or mine"] he [Plunkett] brought a 
noie for the interest (Nourse's obligation), and when he finally got one 
to conform to my offer, he substituted a new condition (what condi- 
tion ?), and that was that, although the note was signed and delivered 
to him for me, he would retain the possession of it, unless I would 
sign an obligation [what obligation ?], which he also brought, but 
which I did not read . . . ." And why did he not read it ? Had he read 
it, he would have found that there was no question of a neio condition 
or obligation whatever, but merely of a receipt of Nourse's obligation ; 
a receipt which Mr. Plunkett justly solicited in proof both of my hav- 
ing complied with the condition on which I had been granted the delay, 
and of his having faithfully executed my commission. But the master 
hand now would sign no receipt at all, to remain at liberty either to re- 
sell, or not, the Mexican scrip, on or before the 6th of July, according to 
its value at that period, and offered, instead of the receipt, the testimony 
of a </oor-A-ee;jer of the Senate, by the name oiBassett, Avho had nothing 
to do in the matter, and with whom, as I already said [page 47], Mr. 
Plunkett was not acquainted at all ... . Who is the swindler ? 

The 7nasier-hand then introduces in his " Address," the following 
declaration of Bassett : , 

" I [Bassett] certify that in June, I think about the 6th or Sth, E, 
Plunkett came to the room adjoining the Senate chamber, and request- 
ed me to ask Judge Mc Roberts to come out, as he wished to see him — 
Mr. Mc Roberts came, and they had some conversation about a note 
[Nourse's obligation], which Plunkett had brought. Plunkett vs^anted 
Judge Mc Roberts to sign some obligation, or receipt, but which he 
(the Judge) peremptorily refused — Judge Mc Roberts told him that 
what he wanted was the money, which he had paid for some Mexican 
Certificates, and he would most cheerfully sell and deliver them to him. 
Plunkett ivanted the time extended to the sixth of July, for Santangelo 
to re-purchase them. Mr. Mc Roberts said to Plunkett : " bring your 
money at that time, all I Avant is the moneyj and I shall be glad, very 
glad, to receive it and deliver you the certificates" — He [the Judge] 
then returned into the Senate — August 1st, 1842. — Isaac Bassett." ^ 

This declaration, evidently draAvn up by the master-hand, and signed 
by the complaisant doorkeeper, speaks^ however^ wholly in favor of 
Plunkett, so certain is it that the force of truth sooner or later sur- 



69 

mounts all obstacles, and tears awaj'- all masks. Plunkett had, then, 
according toBassett, brought to Mc Roberts the obligation of Nourse. . 
. . . Plunkett wanted a receipt Plunkett wanted the time ex- 
tended to the 6th of July for me to re-purchase my certificates 

Mc Roberts peremptorily refused the receipt ..... Mc Roberts conse- 
quently refused the obligation of Nourse which could not be delivered 
to him without a receipt ...... Mc Roberts withdrew therefore, his 

own oifer, broke his own promise, and fraudulently kept my certificates 
in his possession ! ! ! And could Plunkett rely on his verbal intima-' 
tion : " bring your money at that time [the 6th of July], and I shall de- 
liver you the certificates ?" Under what warranty was such a promise 
made ? On the contrary, was not the only fact of that unjustifiable refu- 
sal of the receipt, sufficient to evince his ulterior treacherous designs ? 
Plunkett understood him, left him, returned to Mr. Nourse his written 
obligation, and thus all adjustment ended, and my scrip remained /or- 
feited ! This occurrence took place on the 9th of June, and then the 
Senator wanted to justify his deceitful conduct, of which he had reason 
to fear the consequences. Hence his subsequent intrigue through Mr. 
Beale, as related page 48 [see doc. 24, 45, 46]. 

Regarding my Mexican Certificates as lost, I had forgotten them : I 
had forgotten Mc Roberts himself; when on the 21st of June, his letter 
of the 4th [the one concealed by Mad. Santangelo] fortuitously fell into 
my hands [see page 47] — The tenor of that defamatory lampoon, in ad- 
dition to the cheat, of which I had been the victim, now awakened in 
my heart an irresistible indignation. Honor, veracity, moral character, 
patriotic services &c. all that was to me dearer than life, liberty, or 
Mexican Scrip &c. all was in that scrawl most contemptuously trampled 
under foot. Hence my letter of the 30th of June [doc. 21], and by him 
returned unsealed, under a new cover bearing the superscription to me 
in his own hand- writing [doc. 22], hence my sending it immediately, on 
the same day to Mr. Force for publication, and receiving the answer of 
his foreman Mr. Haliday of the following day 1st of July [doc. 23 and 
29] — hence my starting for New York on the 3d on business, and the 
surprise made on the 6th, in my absence, by Mr. Beale, in company 
with Senator Fulton, to Mr. Plunkett in Washington [doc. 24 and 4:5]-- 
hence my " Circular to the World" of the 26th July, printed in 
New York, and sent immediately to Washington [doc. 25]— and hence 
the "Address" of Samuel Mc Roberts of the 9th of August, "in reply 
to my Publication" [doc. 26]. 

In»REPLT Was that " Address" really a reply to my " Circular 

to the World ?" By no means at all, Under the specious word replt, 
Mc Roberts, far from opposing in the least the refutation made by me 
in my " Circular to the World," of his defamatory letter of the 4th of 
June, only reproduced in his " Address" the same falsehoods and ab- 
surdities contained in that letter ; and taking no notice at all of ray 
refutations, he endeavoured to cast on me, with the greatest coolness, 
his own swindling operations, of which I had been the victim ; and 
finally, to give' credit to this imposture, and freely to exhale', at the 
same time, his poisonous revenge, he gravely and magisterially over- 
loaded me with opprobrious epithets and calumnies of the most abom- 
inable character. Was this a reply ? Demonstration. 

Samuel Mc Roberts, by reproducing in full length in his " Address," 



60 

his letter of the 4th of June, without contradicting any of the refuta- 
tions I had made of it in my *' Circular to the world," but foolishly 
maintained the same ground that he had occupied in that letter, thus 
implicitly acknowledging the exactness of my refutations, and his un- 
deniable wrong. His cheval de hatailh in his " Address" was the 
same as in his letter, this : 

Page Q — "His [my] object was to change the sale which he had 
made to a mere borroicing of money upon a pledge of the certificates, 
and which would have divested those for whom I made the purchase,, 
of their properly in them." 

Page 12—" The true reason was they (my agents perhaps) did not 
intend to pay the money. The certificates had fallen in price ; they 
would not sell at arty price. Santangelo had received more from me 
for them than any one else would pay— Mexican credit was growing 
worse — and Santangelo, when he found that neither by fraud, threats 
or other subterfuges, could he get the contract changed from a sale of 
the certificates to a mere horroioing of money upon a pledge of the cer- 
tificates, ivhich loas his sole object, he violated his promise to pay the 
money, and fabricated the falsehood that I had refused to allow him to 
re-purchase the certificates on the 6th of July, although I had promised 
to do so." 

All this trickery in the use of words reduces itself to this : 

1st. — That I intended to qualify as a borroivirig ot money the sale 
which I had made to the Senator, to divest the wards with whose mo- 
ney he had purchased the certificates, of their property in them : 

2dly. — That, when the certificates had fallen in price, I did not intend 
to re-purchase them : and when I had not succeeded in changing the 
sale 1 had made of them, into a borrowing of money, I violated my 
promise (what promise?) to re-purchase them, and would make it ap- 
pear (why ?) that he the Senator, had refused me the delay he had 
promised for re-purchasing them on the 6th of July ! ! ! 

This therefore is what constituted my attempt to carry out a swind- 
ling operation, a device, a complication of crimes wholly new in this 
country, a most infamous villany, a fraud, an infamous plan, never 
heard of amongst the dark crimes to be found Avithin the prison walls 

of Mexico and Europe and did this farrago of nonsense come from 

a distempered brain, or from one of those fits of blind and maniacal 
wrath, to which poor misers are but too often subject ? Hoc est 
videndum. 

In the 1st point of this defensive plan (page 43) I have fully dispers- 
ed all the clouds, in which the Senator had tried to envelope his badly 
constructed castle to prove his honest and lawful retention of my scrip ; 
but, two words more : 

1st.— I never insisted upon the sale spoken of being a borrowing, or 
the borrowing a sale. If eventually I used the phrases : " you advan- 
ced me money" or " I borrowed from you money," instead of: " you 
bought from me," or "Isold to you .&c", it was because I perceived 
no difference at all between selling a thing with a condition of re-emp- 
tion within a given time, paying mterest, or forfeiting it, and borrowing 
on pledge with a condition of redeeming it, with interest, at a stated pe- 
riod, or likewise forfeiting it. The forfeiture being in both cases of non- 
re-emptjon, or non-redemption, inevitable, no malice could be attached 



61 

to my designating the bargain rather as a pledge than a sale ; and conse- 
quently, in my case, no prejudice could result, from the use of either ex- 
pression, to Mc Roberts' ivards. 

2ndly. — A shining proof of the little importance attached by me to 
either expression is that I received without the least objection, four re- 
ceipts from Mc Roberts (doc. 3, 4, 5 and 7) wherein he said to have 
purchased my certificates on condition of re-selling them to me on or 
before the 6th of June, 

3dly. — I merely solicited the frolongation of that term to the 6th of 
July, and then I could derive no advantage from considering my certifi- 
cates rather as pledged than sold, or rather as sold than pledged. Nor 
could I oblige him to grant other delays, /ro?n month to month, he hav- 
ing my certificates in his possession ; and therefore no fraud, threat or 
subterfuge could ever enable me to have them back, except by his own 
consent, without my complying with all the conditions, under which 
the sale or the loan had been contracted. Swircdling was then impossi- 
ble on my part, unless I had attempted to swindle his brain, to cause 
him to say yes, whilst he was determined to say no. Common sense 
suffices to understand this. 

Let us now look into the merits of the quarrel, and we will conclude 
that " swindling" was Mc Roberts's own object, and that he fully at- 
tained that object through a sublimity of malice acquired, no doubt, from 
the twenty-years practice " in holding courts as a judge," that is in scru- 
tinizing the " dark crimes" of the unfortunate creatures, who during 
twenty years were subjected to his infallible sentences. 

According to our first agreement, I was to rescue (or re-purchase, if 
you wish) my certificates on the 6lh of June, or forfeit them. The short- 
ness of that term was justified by the alleged probability of Congress ad- 
journing by that time, and the then necessity for the speculating law- 
yer—judge — senator to return home to Illinois (see page 38). — But, 
when in my respectful and touching letter of the 27th of May, (doc. 11) 
I solicited a prorogation of that term. Congress not adjourning until Au- 
gust or later, he, fearing to lose his prey, tried on the 28th to silence me 
with a rude and peremptory refusal, not making the least allusion to the 
postponed adjournment of Congress (doc. 12). My remonstrance of the 
1st of June against his ungentlemanly conduct (doc. 13) put him in a 
perplexity ; but he could not leave it unanswered without acknowledg- 
ing his wrong. He then sent me, in the afternoon of the 5th, his terrible 
epistle dated the 4th (doc. 16,) in which he, at the same time overload- 
ed me with insults, and granted the delay so strenuously refused before. 
How is this ? Here is the finesse. The insults were to make me trem- 
ble and the delay had a double object: 1st. by promising it, he 

prevented me from making, as I would have made, in the evening of 
5th or the morning of the 6th, a last effort to find means to rescue my 
certificates: 2dly he having read in the "National Intelligencer" of 
the 1st, that the Mexican Certificates were selling at 6 1-2 cents in the 
dollar (as confessed by himself), his promise of a delay, in such terms 
as would enable him to keep it or not, would leave him at liberty to 
re-sell me my certificates or not, as best suited his convenience and 
interest. We have seen on what conditions the delay was promised in 
his letter of the 4th, namely: either to have from me within /owr days, 
a written obligation of any responsible man, to pay him two per cent. 



62 

interest on the sum he had advanced on my scrip, or, also within four 
days, a note payable in bank of the 6th of July, in which latter case he 
would deliver me at once the scrip. In both cases, however, he was 
determined to elude the fulfilment of his promise, and let the four days 
pass, as the first term of the 6th of June had passed, without depriving 
himself of the liberty of re-selling, or not, the certificates. We have 
seen, likewise, how I became acquainted with these promises and con- 
ditions, without yei knowing the tenor of his insulting letter. We have 
seen that, when, instead of sending him a written obligation from a 
third person for the payment of said interest on the 6th of July, I sent 
him the amount of that interest in ready cash, he mysteriously reject- 
ed it, for had he received it, no door would have remained open to him 
for new subterfuges. We have seen how I fully complied with the 
first of the two conditions prescribed by him, how he disregarded the 
obligations of Mr. Nourse, how he let pass the four days, and how on 
the 9th of June he broke all promises and closed all negotiations. I 
have said also that the cause of this shameful and unexpected breach 
of faith, was the information which he had received from the " Index" 
of the 6th of June, that the Mexican Certificates were now selling in 
New York at from 55 to 68 cents in the dollar (a). I have related the 
accidental discovery I made on the 21st of his outrageous letter of the 
4th, my answer of the 30th, his returning it contemptuously to me, my 
sending it to a printing office in Washington, the postponment of its 
publication there, my starting on the 3d of July for New York on busi- 
ness, his new provoking intrigues in my absence, which finally compel- 
led me to have my returned letter printed in a " Circular to the World" 
in New York for Washington &c. Who is now the swindler ? Who 
the excellens in arte of swindling ? Man and God will answer : Sam- 
TEL Mc Roberts. What will the Court of Sessions say ? Have I not 
lost my certificates ? Has not Mc Roberts malis artibus preserved 
them ? Who is the sivindler ? 

But his Address ought to hide his wrong, and this his master hand 
attempted to do, not through proofs of uprightness which were impossi- 
ble, but by dint of maledictions, imprecations, defamatory calumnies, 
barefaced falsehoods, and horrors of the blackest nature against my per- 
son, my name, my wife, my honest friend Plunkett, my courage, my 
rights to republican gratitude and esteem, and even against the honor of 



(a) — In the printed file of documents at the head of this brochure, the quoted 
article from the " Index" of the 6th of June is not inserted, for I received a copy 
of that paper I'rom Washington too laie to avail of it before said file was printed. 
The copy of the " Index" referred to will, therefore, be found in my original doc- 
uments under the No. 61 ; and the quoted article as printed on its second page, 
column first, is the following : • 

"Mexican Schip. — We have positive information, from a source too respect- 
•' able to admit of a doubt, that an article which appeared in the New- York Jour- 
" nal of Commerce relative to the sale at six and a half cents on the dollar of some 
" of the certificates issued under our treaty with Mexico, emanated from sordid 
" speculators, desirous of depreciating that description of stock, so as to be able 
" to effect an advantageous purchase ; and that, on the contrary, pj-irafe sales have 
" been made from fifty -five to sixty-eight cents on the dollar. We advise all those 
" whose circumstances will permit them to retain their scrip, not to sacrifice it, as 
" it is generally asserted among those who have control over matters of this kind, 
^' that the period is not far distant when they will be made worth their full valueP 



63 

the Spanish nation, with which I have nothing to do, and even the whole 
class of refugees in this hospitable land, favoring them with the title of 
Fellons [a proficiency in orthography]. Let us see some of his legal, 
judicial and Senatorial gentillesses. 

1st. — On the 6th of July I was in New York. On that very day Mr. 
Plunkett received in Washington the visit of the messengers of Mc Rob- 
erts, Messrs. Beale and Fulton, and in date of the same day he informed 
me, through the mail, of the object and the result of that visit. The 
honest senator, however, asserts in his "Address" that the statement of 
Plunkett was concerted with me, thus making me present, on the same 
day 6th of June, both in New York and in Washington, and he calls 
that statement " a direct, wilful and deliberate lie^ He quotes then, in 
support of this laughable anachronism or omni-presence, the testimony 
of Beale. He and Beale were both in Washington .... On which side 
then is the concert presumable ? 

2dly. — He advances that " I did not want to rescue my certificates on 
account of their low price." And who or what could oblige me to res- 
cue them ? Was I not at liberty to rescue them or to forfeit them ? 
Had I ever signed any obligation, engagement or promise whatever to 
re-purchase them ? I only wanted the delay of one month to recover 
them if possible. To obtain this delay all my efforts were precisely di- 
rected, offering whatever interest. Could I make such efforts and of- 
fers to get a thing I did not want ?" Is this the logic of a lawyer, a 
judge, a senator, a master-hand ? 

3dly. He produces in his " Address" an answer of Mr. Aaron Leg- 
gett to his enquiry as to the value of the Mexican Certificates in New- 
York. Leggett states that on the 30th of May he was offered 6 1-2 
cents on the dollar. Mc Roberts confesses to have read this information 
in the " National Intelligencer" of the 1st of June, and this had deter- 
mined him to promise me in his insulting letter of the 4th, the delay 
which he had before so stubbornly refused. Leggett's note was, there- 
fore, but a confirmation of his intrigue, and he did not perceive that. 
He carefully abstained, however, froixi mentioning the fact reported by 
the " Index" of the 6th, that said Mexican Certificates were selling in 
New York at from 55 to 68 cents on the dollar (doc. 42), which report 
caused him to break his promise of the 4th : yet he received the " In- 
dex" daily. 

4th. — I had stated in my " Circular to the World" that on the 13th 
of June he had been charged with falsehood by one of his colleagues 
in the Senate. I had copied this intelligence from the Weekly Herald 
of New York of the 18th (doc. 20). ' No body is ignorant of the im- 
mense circulation of this paper, especially in Washington and more es- 
pecially in both houses of Congress. He had never complained of it. 
But he was pleased to make me the wilful author of it charging me 
with falsehood and using the senatorial epithets of " low, base, infa- 
mous scoundrel" — In proof of this he copies in his address an answer 
returned by senators King and Young to his request on the subject, af- 
firming that that statement, by whoever made, was utteily untrue. Why 
did he not, therefore, apply those dignified qualifications to the Herald ? 
Because he feared not to find it palitable. 

5th. — Then, to show how well informed he was of my person, he 
designates me in his " Address" as a "dastardly and coivardly old span- 



64 

lARD ! ! !" Was this whimsical sally excogitated to insult the poor 
Spanish nation, with Avhich I had nothing to do, or to evince his geo- 
graphical knowledge by supposing Italy to be a province of Spain ? 

6th. — He then declares a formidable war to my name (Santangelo) 
qualifying it to be ^a " putrid stench" — Whoever knows me, knows 
likewise that my family name is " de Attellis," and that " Santangelo" 
is a town (in the province of Molise in the kingdom of Naples), whence 
I derived my former title of marquis, which I exchanged, eighteen years 
ago, for the nobler and more glorious title of American Citizen. Is ev- 
ery name beginning by Santo or Saint, in the opinion of the high-mind- 
ed senator, a putrid stench ? Have not both worlds, the United States 
not excepted, numberless towns, cities, villages, streets, country-seats, 
islands, gulfs, inns, taverns, hotels, rivers, theatres, hospitals, churches, 
families &c, whose names are preceded by the adjective " Saint 1" 
But judge Mc Robers has judged the whole to be a putrid stench ; and 
this in reply to my " Circular to the World" ! ! ! 

7th. — Here he sounds the tocsin to call down on my head the fury of 
seventeen millions af Americans, telling them that I have slandered the 
government and the people of the United States, by applying " to the 
principal executive officers" such epithets as we could only expect to 
EMINA.TE (on a par with palitable), from a brothel, such as "fools," 
" quacks &c." And in another part of the "'Address" he frankly charges 
me with having said that the " United States trernbles at the sight 
of its own shadow" — This I had said not of the United States, but of 
her Government in defence of her national honor. This I had proved 
in sundry publications, and I confirm it now and forever. But the Sen- 
ator in his twenty years practice as a lawyer and a judge, had learned 
that government and nation are identically the same thing ! and 
thence he concludes : " His charge of cowardice against the United 
States proves him to be not only a liak, but a traitor." The charge 
being a calumny, who is the liar ? And has the Senator learned from 
the Art. 3. Sect. 3. of our Constitution, the meaning of the word trai- 
tor ? Miserable ! 

8th. — The athlete now enters the arena, lowers his visor, and chal- 
lenges me au combat. He baptizes me a coward ! ! ! " This hero, he 
says, of scurrilous pamphlets never makes such a call (a call on whom ?) 
as would put his courage to the testj^-it is a pity that such chivalry 
should bolt before it reaches the sticking point — there would be danger 
in such rashness ! — so he pockets the insults and revenges himself by 
telling lies ! — a wretch who announced himself to be seventy years old, 
and kept himself concealed in close quarters while he was in Washington, 
to shield himself (from what his guilty conscience told him he deserv- 
ed) the COWHIDE — he has kept such close quarters as not to be seen 
either by myself ! ! ! (who ?) or any one of those he has been slander- 
ing — [who ?]. He sends his wife about town to transact business, and 
SHE reported him sick— a dastard who had ran off to New York, and 
published his slanders upon myself (who ?) and other individuals (who ?), 

and sent them bacjk through the mail &c." — Diable! Was I not in 

Washington when I sent him, in person, my original letter of the 
30th of June, by him unsealed, consequently read, and silently relumed ? 
Was I not in Washington when, on the same day I sent that letter to 
to the printer ? Had I not left it in Washington on my starting for 



65 '^'-"^ 

New York ? Had he not, himself, compelled me to have it printed m 
New York? Had he not, himself cowardly published his " Address" in 
Washington in my absence ? Had he not, after the lapse of seventeen 
days, brought me to law in New York, most cowardly fearing the con- 
sequences of that proditory publication ? — Diahle ! Is not such a 
bravo the same bravo who desired me to make a call to put my courage 
to the test ? — who reproaches me with pocketing his insults .... thus 
implicity confessing to have been my assaulter ? — who seeking for me 
in Washington with a senatorial cowhide in his hand, found me conceal- 
ed in close quarters, namely, living in a boarding house which was 
open day and night cuique de populo in the most central and conspic- 
uous part of the city ? — who now teaches the public that retirement in 
literary occupations is cowardice ; that to be sick is a crime , that a wife 
who reports the sickness of her husband is a liar ; that a lady who, 
instead of losing the day in reading novels, strumming on a piano, or 
curling her borrowed hair, assists her old and sick husband in his neces- 
sities, is a despicable vagrant " about town" — Diable ! truly the mas- 
ter-hand is not one of those paltry fellows, of whom a philosopher would 
say: 

" Non mi euro di lor, ma guarda epasso." 

But, jesi apart. It is not before the Court of General Sessions that I 
have to unravel proofs of courage : suffice it to say that the cowhide- 
senator, who has so bravely brought me to law, has denounced me a 
coivard, whilst in law I am indicted by a Grand Jury for having provok- 
ed the pacific Senator to a breach of the peace with ybrce and arms [doc 
34] ! ! ! Who speaks the truth ? Hoc est videndum. 

9th. — " Other men, my honorable libeller adds, who have been inces- 
santly assailed and libelled by this degraded being, have not, in conse- 
quence of his INFAMOUS CHARACTER, condesccuded to notice him" — 

Other men What men ? This is the language rather of Tropho- 

nius than of a Senator of the United States from Illinois. Who are those 
men? how assailed ? why libelled? — and does the silence of the libel- 
led always prove the infamous character of the libeller ? 

" Chi tace affenna'" 
is the proverb of my ex-country. Let those hypothetical men speak, 
and then we shall see who is right. 

10. — Here is the last bomb from the battery : the Senator majes- 
tically exclaims : 

" He has received this notice at my hands (the master-hand) that the 
Public may see what schemes those fellons (sores !), who have been 
expelled from other countries, can resort to here, to defraud and swindle 
and to libel the government as well as individuals ; and to make an ex- 
ample of a. detested villain, whose insignificance shall not be a mantle 
to protect him from merited chastisement — Samuel Mc Roberts. 
Washington City, August 9, 1842." 

The lawgiver virtually proposes here the repeal of our laws of natu- 
ralization, the non-admission of foreigners, nay two legislations, the 
one for natives, the other for foreigners — nay a crusade or a Saint- 
Barthelemi against all foreigners, all fellons (sores !). I am certain- 
ly a sore (fellon) to the Senator, designated as one " expelled from other 
countries ;" charged with having come here " to defraud, to sivindle, 

9 



66 

to lilel the goremment and other persons;" to be a " detested villain"' 

and then the worthy lawgiver proposes the enactment of an Act 

for chastising insignificance !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

A ]>IGRESSION — TO BE TAKEN NOTICE OF, OPv NOT,, AD LIBITUM. 

I am toid by a Senator of the United States, in public, before the Na- 
tion, before Congress, before a Court of Justice, to have been expelled 
from other countries, to have come here to defraud, swindle, libel the 
government &c., and these reproaches are accompanied with the titles 
of base, coward, villain, infamous, traitor, fellon fire. This I must 
regard as an attempt to blacken before the world at once my name, 
my family, my origin, my education, and my whole life both in Ameri- 
ca and Europe. The Court of General Sessions and the American peo- 
ple must now either believe me as depicted by the Senator, or the 
Senator such as he really is, the vilest, the foulest of calumniators. A 
few words, therefore, I must be allowed in support of my natural and 
social rights. This is one of the cases, in which honor must not be im- 
molated to a misunderstood modesty. 

Nobody here is obliged to believe, nor authorized to know, who I 
was, how I lived during fifty years in Europe. I shall not unfold, then, 
before the Court and America such numberless irrefragable proofs, 
which are actually in my possession, as might bury my Honorable de- 
tractor in an abyss of scorn and everlasting infamy. The Consul Gen- 
eral of ray native country, at present in this city, has already told the 
Senator who I am, what brought nie, eighteen years ago, to these 
shores, and since when I have been honoi-ably recalled home by the 
crowned philantrophist who is now making the felicity of the Two-Sici- 
lies, [doc. 51 and 52] — The motives of my still preferring to live, in 
obscurity, amongst /reeTTiew to the splendor of a royal court, are I trust, 
not unknown to those who know my personal character and principles. 
Neither shall I take the trouble of troubling others with idle recitals 
about my sacrificing titles, riches, distinctions and privileges of the 
most eminent order on the altar of Liberty, nor my long services ren- 
dered to this goddess in Italy, France and Spain since 1796, when at 
the age>,of 22 I was Secretary of the Lombard Legation near the " Di- 
Tectoir executif " of France ; nor about my 34 years of military services, 
10 truly of glorious campaigns, three dangerous wounds, and chivalrie 
decorations bought with my blood on the field of battle, and honorable 
mention of my soldier-like conduct in several bulletins of the grand-ar- 
mies, whose glories I had the honor to share. Nor shall I say a single 
word about my military, political and philosophical works and periodi- 
cals in behalf of the rights of mankind, even in times and places where 
a single word could cause the loss of my head, nor about my four emi- 
grations, eight imprisonments, two capital sentences, and numerous af- 
fairer d''homteur, either as a patriot, a free-mason, a carbonari, or a man 
of honor &;c. but always in defence of the sovereignty of the people. I 
shall likewise pass in silence the enlistment of my name among the 
members of many illustrious scientific societies, and the marks of benev- 
olence received from liberal sovereigns and queens reagent, sovereign 
repubUcan corporations^ and a host of renowned diploma^^tists and others 



67 - 

of eminent rank, even religious, and even in no few occasions, Brom en« 
tire populations. — I will have here, for the first time in my long life, the 
pride, the vanity, the impertiQence, the impudence, the foolishness of ad- 
vancing and affirming that, if success has put me at an immense dis- 
tance from William Tell, Washington, La Fayette, John Tyler Dan 
lEL Webster fee, my services, sufferings, disinterestedness, losses, con- 
stancy, dangers, firmness, and true and total self-abnegation, have pla- 
ced at an enormous distance from me many of the heroes of the pre- 
sent age, with the exception, however, of Samuel Mc Roberts, the Se- 
nator from Illinois. Let me forget Europe. 

But I have a right, and I must avail of it, highly to give the lie to 
whomsoever may dare to calumniate my life in America. Here I am to 
show my forehead to this land of my choice, to this country of my adop- 
tion, here where truth can easily be known, and imposition unmasked. 
Eighteen years residence and of unspotten conduct in this quarter of the 
globe, have not convinced a Mc Roberts that no such charges of fraud, 
swindling, felony, treason, libelling the government &c. were to be pre- 
ferred by a gentleman and a Senator against an honest citizen for the only 
crime of having tried, although in vain, to defend his purse against vile 
rapacity. What, in the name of God, have I ever done in America? 

Scarcely landed, in May 1824, from the U, S. frigate Constitution, in 
New York, I went to declare before the Marine Court my intention of 
becoming an American citizen, as I did after five years experiment (doc. 
60), I placed, through the recommendations of Count Survilliers, my ex- 
King, an only son in the Counting-House of Messrs. Leroy, Bayard & 
Co., and I opened a course of commercial sciences through a Prospectus 
raisonne (doc. 53), bearing as references the names of twelve distinguish- 
ed houses, and of which the Atlantic Magazine, the Statesman, the New 
-York American &c. made here the highest encomiums. I went in 1825 
to install my son in an English Mining Company, directed by Chev, 
Rivafinoli, in Mexico, where finding the United States cursed, her citi- 
zens insulted, her rights trampled upon, her minister (Poinsett) calum- 
niated and threatened, I advocated, in a work on the " Congress of Pa- 
nama"(doc. 54) the cause of my adopted country, without offending in 
the least her enemies there, and I was banished by a corrupt ministry 
against the will of the whole Mexican nation, which rose en masse against 
its government and threatened its existence. Insulted by its " Gaceta," 
ruined in my properiy by its agents, I went to embark at Veracruz un- 
der escort, and my adored only son, who renounced a salary of $3000 
per annum to follow his old and unfortunate parent, caught the yellow 
fever in that port, and found a watery grave in the gulf I labored nine 
months under insanity caused by that inestimable loss, I was introduced 
to president Adams, secretary Clay, .John Seargent, Duponceaux, Cary 
and Lea &c. in Philadelphia, where I married an accomplished lady of 
Lancaster, and afterwards established in New York a splendid Boarding 
School for ladies, and select evening classes for gentlemen, and in the 
cousre of five years had thirteen hundred pupils, amongst whom, I am 
happy to record, several members of the family of Kent, two Slosson's,a 
daughter of Judge Hammond, &c. I received there the visits of Gover- 
nor Clinton and Dr. Mitchell, with whom I became acquainted at 
the Holland Lodge No. 16 (of which I was a member), of J. R. 
Poinsett, on his returning from Mexicoj and of all the distinguished 



Mexicans, who repaired to this city, such as Zavala, Tornel, Megia, 
Barragan, Basadre, Basave and sons, Salgado with his family of 
three ladies, Hernandez, Ortiz, Almonte, Pedraza, Kegrete (an ex- 
iled general from Mexico), the consul Obregon, &c. In 1832, the 
cholera dispersed the members of my Institute ; and being recalled to 
Mexico, where I was promised by her new administrators, an indemni- 
ty for the distressing iujuries I had endured in 1826,1 there found my old 
friend Santa Anna, at the head of the Capuchins, nobles, escoceses. cen- 
tralists &c. I opened then, an academy for ladies, which in a few 
months became the model of all similar institutions in the country, and 
commenced editing the semi-weekly literary periodical " El Correo At- 
lantico ;" but I would neither praise nor censure Santa Anna, and he be- 
came my enemy. I advocated, against the slanders of various editors, 
the innocence of the American colonists of Texas, and the honor of our 
government, accused of promoting their insurrection, to possess it- 
self with that portion of the Mexican dominions [doc. 35] ; and then 
banished again in 1835, despoiled, robbed, losing $6000 per annum from 
my school, and as much from my paper. I took refuge in New Orleans. 
I established immediately in that city another Institution, and instruct- 
ed nearly 800 youth in less than five years, continued my " Correo At- 
lantico" in defence of Texas, whose Congress made me a gift of 4605 
acres of land, and gave to the militia of that state a volunteer company, 
called " The Mount Vernon Musketeers [doc. 56 and 59]. But, in 1840, 
obliged by our Convention with Mexico, to go and lay my claims upon 
Mexico before a Board established in Washington, I repaired there with 
my family, and suffered immense prejudices both from my removal from 
New Orleans, and my struggles in Washington against all sorts of oppres- 
sion. Yet I do not know of having any enemy there but the enigmatic 
Tyler and Webster, Ai^A/y interested in forcing the claimants on Mexico 
to sell their awarded credits against that country, at a few cents on the 
dollar ; and I shall always remember with astonishment, that in the 
same city and at the same period, that a Senator from Illinois, " receiv- 
ed an intimation that I was a base man," numerous and distinguish- 
ed members of the " National Institution for the promotion of Science" 
there established, honored my insignificance by unanimously enrolling 
my PUTKiD-sTENCH-name in their illustrious catalogue [doc. 57 and 58]. 
I was ultimately brought up as a criminal by whom ? by a Mc Roberts (!!!) 
before the Court of General Sessions in this city ! (page 35). This has 
been my defrauding, my sivindling in America ;and my just complaints 
against a couple of soulless members of our administration, who were 
sacrificing our own citizens to their respectful regard for Mexico, my 
libels on the government ! Yet I never was an office-seeker, nor an in- 
triguer at the polls! I never received or asked a favor ! I never, du- 
ring 18 years of labor and honor, appeared before a criminal court of 
justice in this country. I challenge the universe to deny this ; and I 
condemn Samuel Mc Roberts to bear stamped on his forehead the 
word CALUMNIATOR, nisi contrarium probe tur — But let us have 
proofs, not words. 



On my receiving, on the 22d of August, m New York, the above 
briefly analyzed "Address" mailed, in Washington the preceding day, 



69 

2] St, by Mr. Plunkett [doc. 45], I prepared for a suitable counter-reply, 
and published en attendant on the 26th, the following advertisement 
[doc. 27) : 

" TO ALL MEN. 

" A pamphlet has made its appearance in the city of Washington un- 
" der the title of 'Address of Mr. Mc Roberts of the Senate of the 
" United States, in reply to a Publication of O. de Santangelo.' — To 
" this title is immediately subjoined, under the anonymous designation 
" of' Note by the Publisher,'' a calumnious denunciation, charging pub- 
" licly ' Santangelo' with defaming crimes ' wholly new in our coun- 
" try ....!! i' On the second printed page of the pamphlet, the 'Ad- 
" dress' appears made ' To the Public' In his Address to the Public 
" Mc Roberts bravely involves Madame Santangelo, a perfect model 
" of all social and domestic virtues, and Mr. E. Plunkett, a youth of 24 
" years of age, whose talents, morals, manners, point of honor and patri- 
*' otism would command the respect of the universe. The world will 
" now be presented (in a document, which shall be sent to-morrow or 
" next day, to the printer) with a full incontrovertible evidence of 
" Samuel Mc Roberts and his absconding ' Publisher,' being, if not two 
" furious madmen, or mad desperadoes^ incontestably a couple of bare- 
" faced impostors, abject ruffians, cowardly felons (not/e//ow5) ignorant 
" slaves, exhibiting in their hideous persons such a complication of re- 
" fined malice, wanton iniquity, perverse ribaldry, meretricious impu- 
" dence, moral corruption, and such an example of open rebellion to all 
" natural and social obligations, principles of common honesty, andfeel- 
" ings of self-respect, that scarcely any thing approaching their hellish 
" character could ever be found, by the most diligent peruser, in the an- 
" nals of human wickedness, or the criminal records of all ancient and 
" modern nations. — I shall support, under oath, this affirmation before 
" any court of justice, or even, if called upon for it, sword in hand, re- 
" gardless of all consequences. Deus meumque jus is my first motto ; 
" preferring death to infamy, is, always was, and shall always be, the 
" second. — Orazio de Attellis Santangelo. — New York, August 26, 
" 1842." 

This advertisement had scarcely been published in the morning of 
the 26th ot August, when in the afternoon I received the visit of 
Messrs. Rogers and Bell, and in the night that of constable Smith. The 
promised refutation of the " Address" was then suspended, and I be- 
came a prisoner under bail. 

OC?' The consequence which I intend to draw from these premises, 
is by no means a right to have the " Address" of Mc Roberts taken at 
present by the Court of Sessions into consideration as a criminal deed to 
operate in this trial so as to subject him to the penalty of the law against 
libels. He is neither accused, nor formally indicted. But his " Address" 
is here exhibited merely as a legal defensive document, as an additional 
evidence proving the following facts : 

1st. 

That every statement, every word contained in my " Circular to the 
"World," about the deceptions and the character of Samuel Mc Roberts, 
is true, exact, correct, proved, incontestable, and consequently that said 
" Circular" cannot be legally qualified as libellous. 



70 

2dly. 

That the Indictment in this case being grounded on error, and highly 
prejudicial both as to the form and the merits of the process, must be 
annulled. 

3dly. 

That the action instituted by the complainant before the Court of 
Sessions having been long preceded by 9, private revenge on his part far 
more offensive than the offence he pretends to have received, cannot be 
admitted in law, nor consequently can the State of New York derive 
from it, from a-nw//i<?/, from a fact not lawfully a subject for any judi- 
cial inquest, an offence to her peace or dignity, and a right of reveng- 
ing it in law. 

But before coming to these demonstrations, I think it essential to prove 
the fact of said Mc Roberts being the true author of that " Address ;" 
for, as no person can be compelled, according to our Constitution, to be 
a witness against himself, he could evade the charge. Conviction is, 
therefore, indispensable, and here are its elements. 

Samuel Mc Roberts is the author of the " Address," 

1. — Because none can reasonably have had the interest, or the mad- 
ness, of producing such a writing to the public. 

2. — The " Address" bears his signature, and he has never repudiated 
it as false. 

3. — The " Address" contains facts and transactions, which at the 
time of its publication were known solely to him and Santangelo, who 
would certainly not have libelled himself. 

4. — The " Address," page 4, contains an obligation signed by Mc Ro- 
berts, and corresponding with its original of his own hand writing, at 
present in the possession of Santangelo (doc. 7). 

5. — The " Address," page 4 and 5, contains a letter signed by Mc 
Roberts, and corresponding with its original in the possession of San- 
tangelo iAoc. 12). 

6. — Tne " Address" contains, page 6 to 10, the letter of seven ynii- 
ten pages, dated June 4th, 1842, whose original, wholly written and 
signed by Mc Roberts, is in the possession of Santangelo (doc. 16). 

7. — The " Address," page 10, speaks of a letter addressed by Mad. 
Santangelo to Mc Roberts, dated June 6th, 1842, a fact known to Mc 
Roberts alone, a certified copy of which letter is in the possession of 
Santangelo (doc. 17). 

8. — The "Address," page 11 to 12, contains a certificate of Isaac 
Bassett, which, from its tenor, cannot have been delivered but at the re- 
quest of Mc Roberts. 

9. — The "Address," page 12, relates a commission given by Mc Ro- 
berts to a Mr. Beale and Senator Fulton, which appears, page 16, from 
a declaration of Beale, delivered at the request of Mc Roberts. 

10. — The " Address," page 13, contains a note addressed by Aaron 
Leggett to Mc Roberts, in answer to certain enquiries of the latter. 
Leggett can be found at No. 412 Pearl street. 

11. — The " Address," page 15, contains a note addressed by Sena- 
tors Young and King to Mc Roberts, in answer to a note of the lat- 
ter. 

12, — The " Address," page 16, contains the above mentioned state- 



71 

ment of Beale, whose particulars evince that he made it in behalf, and 
of course at the request of Mc Roberts. 

13. — Henry Hardy declares that the " Address of Mr. Mc Roberts, of 
the Senate of the United States, in reply to a publication of 0. de San- 
tangelo, was first handed to him by Jonathan Elliott Esq. in a reporter's 
box in the House of Representatives (doc. 31). 

14. — Charles Fenderich declares under oath, that in his presence Isaac 
Bassett said to Mr. Plunkett that Mr, Mc Roberts had sent him a copy 
ofhis printed " Address," containing his certificate (doc. 33). 

15. — Mr. Vanderpool, the Counsel for Mc Roberts, said on the 6th 
of September, in the office of the District Attorney, in the presence of 
the same, of Mr. Santangelo, of Mr. Purroy, and of Mr. Attinelli, that 
Mc Roberts had written that " Address" only in his own defence. 

16. — Johnson K. Rogers, witness for the prosecution, declared in his 
cross-examination of the lOth of September, in the presence and in the 
oflice of the District Attorney, to have seen the pamphlet, marked B in 
the file of the proceedings (which is the "Address" of Mc Roberts), 
at Mrs. Mounts in Washington, (a boarding house where five members 
of Congress) lived — see the Congr. directory by Robert Furnham, page 
35) — which Mrs. Mount is a relative of Mc Robertas wife. 

17. — Edward Johnston Esq. formerly editor of the " Independent" in 
Washington, told Mrs. Santangelo that he was told by several persons 
that they had received copies of Mc Roberts's " Address" to the Public. 

18. — Vincent Masi, Merchant, gave Mrs. Santangelo a copy of Mc 
Roberts's " Address," which he had received from his brother Sera- 
phin Masi, keeper of a boarding house, where five members of Con- 
gress also lived (see Cong, directory). 

1 9. -Evidence is being procured of Mc Roberts having distributed his 
" Address" to all, or a great number of members of both Houses of Con- 
gress, from whom Mrs. Santangelo, or Mr. Plunkett received three co- 
pies of it in Washington. 

From the premises we have a moral, material and legal certainty, 
nay a full and incontrovertible evidence of Samuel Mc Roberts being the 
true and sole author, publisher and propagator of the " Address" now 
under the inspection of the Court. 

A question arises : 

Had Samuel Mc Roberts, after the publication and the distribution of 
his " Address," a right to bring me to law as his libeller ? And has 
the State of New York, independently from Mc Roberts havuig, or not, 
such an action, a right of prosecuting me for a breach of the peace, and 
an off"ence to her dignity, under the pretence of my libel against Mc Rob- 
erts having been printed and distributed within the limits of her territo- 
rial jurisdiction ? Let us see. 

Offence is a means of defence when indispensable to avert an immi- 
nent danger, when periculum est in mora. Thus a man who raises his 
hand to stab me, authorizes me to kill him. But when a defence can 
tranquilly be made, and offense is added to it ; when to a lawful vindica- 
tion of one's honor or innocence is joined a lawless private revenge ; 
when private revenge is pushed so far as to take the character of a wil- 
ful assault, not only unnecessary to one's defence or justification, but 
purposely calculated to gratify a wanton resentment, in open defiance 



72 

of the law, to which the right of revenging public and private offences 
is exclusively attributed ; in such cases, private revenge not only de- 
prives an offended person of all right to implore in his behalf the re- 
venge of the law, but it becomes a crime itself, an usurpation of the ju- 
diciary power, an attempt to subvert social order. 

Samuel Mc Roberts by the sole act of publishing his " Address," for- 
feifted all claim to legal satisfaction. He not only inflicted a punisha- 
ble injury on the object of his private revenge, but the whole social 
body, whose vital interest is not to return to the state of nature where 
stat pro ratione voluntas, and _/o?'ce is the supreme law. 

But the lawyer, the judge, the Senator Mc Foberts, seized by a panic 
that from a fellon could eminate a reaction against his " Address," 
which might prove to him not very palitable ; or perhaps malo con- 

cilia motus on the part of some high personage thought it proper, 

seventeen days after the publication of the " Address," to which no 
answer had yet been returned, to abandon the interests of his constitu- 
ents in the Senate, and came to New York to open a glorious campaign 
against my insignificance before a court of justice. 

The advocate of the prosecuting State of New- York will perhaps con- 
tend that the State, looking only at the fact of a libellous pamphlet hav- 
ing been distributed within the limits of her jurisdiction, in disturbance 
of her peace and dignity, apart from all antecedent, concomitant or con- 
sequent acts, rights or wrongs of Mc Roberts, is legally entitled, if not 
bound, to revenge the offence offered to her laws. This, on my part, I 
contend to be an absurdity. I shall prove in the 4th Point of these de- 
fensive allegations that no intentional or material distribution of my 
" Circular to the World" has ever taken place within and for this State 
before my arrest ; but even in the hypothesis of such a distribution 
having taken place, it could have by no means authorized in my case a 
criminal prosecution. 

The object of the law against libels is to preserve the peace and dig- 
nity of the people undisturbed and unimpared. It regards an attack 
made on the good name and reputation of one citizen as a breach of the 
peace of all, and consequently applies to this breach a penalty. But 
does the law also order, or authorize a prosecution ex officio against 
libels in private quarrels, in which neither the civil and political ex- 
istence of the people, nor their sovereignty and security, are in any 
way compromised ? Do hhels against individuals produce ipso jure 
popular action ? This I do not suppose to be the case. The libel is 
then to be complained of and denounced by the libelled himself, to justi- 
fy a judicial action. In our case the complainant had neither a right to 
complain, an action to institute, nor satisfaction to demand from the laws 
of any country at all ; for he could not have first revenged, with his own 
hands, the offence he pretends to have received through a libellous pub- 
lication, within the jurisdiction of a state, and then go and solicit new 
revenge from any other power on earth, under whose jurisdiction the 
same libel may happen to have appeared. 

Mc Roberts, on his receiving in Washington my " Circular to the 
World," printed in New York, and supposed to be a libel, had no doubt 
a right to sue me wherever the distribution had taken place, and my 
person could be found. But he voluntarily refrained from pursuing this 
course, took the revenge in his own hands, and this disarmed the rigor 



73 

of the law of all countries and places. The State of New York had, 
therefore, no right to believe herself more offended by that publication 
than the District of Columbia, the State of Illinois, the State of Geor- 
gia, or any other sovereign State, where the pretended libel might have 
been circulated. The author thereof had already been the object of an 
outrageous private revenge, and no law, in no country, can punish an 
offence whatsoever, or permit it to be punished first by the offender him- 
self, and then by a court of justice. Private revenge is in fact, all over 
this globe, a full peremption, an extinction of the offence, and conse- 
quently of all legal action against the offender. It can only expose the 
revenger himself to punishment, should the satisfaction arbitrarily taken 
by him, prove to be a violation of the existing laws. My " Circular to 
the World" having therefore ceased to be legally punishable from the 
moment in which the " Address" of Mc Roberts made its appearance 
in Washington, the State of New York could derive from it no right of 
regarding it as legally punishable within her juridiction. She could not 
consider as an offence to her peace or dignity an act, which at the pe- 
riod of her commencing the prosecution had ceased to be a crime ; in 
Dther words, whose legal effects had been fully annihilated by private 
revenge. Were it not so, the author of a libel circulated all over the 
United States, already a victim to private revenge in one of them, could 
be brought to law and punished thirty times, under thirty different ju- 
risdictions, namely, by the twenty-six statesj the three territories, and 
the federal district which compose the Union. Were it not so, again, 
should a court of justice, taking no notice at all of a private revenge 
already exercised against the offender, subject him to its own legal ju- 
risdiction, it would virtually consecrate the legitimacy or non-imputa- 
bility of j»rryaZe revenue, and thus proclaim the total subversion of so- 
cial order. 

The nature of the action of Samuel Mc Roberts, in my case, may 
tvith propriety be exemplified by one of the following suppositions : 

Peter, verbally insulted by Paul, gives him a slap. Paul, after two 
weeks premeditation, treacherously cuts the face of Peter ; and then, 
seventeen days after that revengeful deed, goes to complain of the slap 
to the police, and arrests Peter for assault and battery. Would not, 
then, the magistrate send Paul to the lunatic asylum ? Or, 

Mexico captures an English vessel under the plea oi her smuggling 
in a Mexican port. England, by way of reprisal, captures or destroys 
the whole Mexican navy ; and then "invites all nations on earth to fall 
■ya. Mexico, and put all her inhabitants to the sword as the enemies of 
mankind. What would the world say ? England is crazy. 

Mc Roberts provokes Santangelo in Washington with a refusal as 
cingentlemanly as it was unjust— Santangelo writes him a resentful 
[etter— Mc Roberts retorts with another, overloading Santangelo with 
iefamatory epithets, and insulting his personal honor and character — 
Santangelo answers, refuting the attack word by word, and punishing 
the assailant with derisory sarcasms— Mc Roberts receives this answer, 
reads it, puts it under a new cover, and contemptuously returns it to 
Santangelo without a reply— Santangelo sees in this act a new affront, 
and immediately sends the returned letter to a printer for publication — 
The printer answers that he could not do it before one or two weeks— 
Santangelo, obliged to repair to New York on business, leaves Wash- 

10 



74 

ington, without taking that letter with him, intending to publish it, or 
not, in Washington on his return there— In New York Santangelo i& 
informed of a new provoking trick on the part of Mc Roberts in AVash- 
ington, showing that, in his absence, his name was there made by the 
latter the sport of insulting reports. — Santangelo then asks and re- 
ceives from Washington the letter above mentioned, through the mail, 
has 300 copies printed in New York in pamphlet form, headed " A 
Circular to the World," and sends almost all of them to Washington — 
Mc Roberts, far from thinking of denouncing the circular as a hbel, med- 
itates a private revenge; and after two weeks premeditation, under the 
pretence of making a reply to it in his own justification, displaying all 
the force of resentment within his reach, publishes there not a reply, 
not a defence, not a reasoned vindication, but a pamiphlet entitled " Ad- 
dress," wherein, far from refuting the " Circular," he exhibits new 
proofs of deception, immorality and ignorance, as denounced in the 
" Circular," and charges Santangelo not merely with vague injurious 
epithets and sarcasms, but with positive calumnious imputations of 
swindling, felony, treason &c. calling on his head the wrath of the 
people of the United States, the hatred of all men, the fury of all ele- 
ments, — Seventeen days after his having executed this atrocious per- 
sonal revenge, fearing a legal persecution in Washington, he secretly 
repairs to New- York, sends an emissary to snatch vmder false pretences 
from the hands of Santangelo a~copy of the " Circular" to prove its dis- 
tribution in this city ; brings him up as a libeller before a police oiBce, 
a grand jury, a criminal court (all uninformed of the antecedents); 
cedes his imaginary action to the State of New York, thus making this 
State the unconscious instrument of his criminal intrigues ; constitutes 
himself a witness for the State, to avoid the danger of being condemned 
to costs and damages ; and in this quality of witness, he insists for the 

immediate trial of his victim for which none could urge but an 

interested party ! .' ! 

Hisce positis, my Counsel will see whether according to the laws of 
the country, all action of the accuser being fully extinguished by his 
own lawless private revenge in a State, it can be legally revived in any 
other State whatever ; whether a State, informed of the peremption of 
that action in another State, can derive from it, and in virtue of a sur- 
prise made to her good faith, the right of regarding herself as offended 
by the publication of a libel, whose legal effects were already destroyed 
by a criminal private revenge; in one word, whether from nought 
something can be derived, or whether oequum, est utfraus in suum aucio- 
rem retorqueatur. 



75 



U POINT, 

ALL THE PROCEEDINGS IN THE CASE, FROM BEGINNING 
TO END, ARE HIGHLY EXCEPTIONABLE. 



The Arrest 

On the 26th of August last, whilst in my bedroom, in a public hotel, 
far from my family, alone, a stranger, not giving the slightest indication 
of a removal, I was arrested, and brought before the police justice Mr, 
Parker. The time chosen for this important operation was the night, 
when to find a bail was almost an impossibility. But it had been de- 
termined [to gratify the noble revenge of my accuser, senator Samuel 
Mc Roberts] that I should pass at least one whole night in a public 
gaol, and, at my advanced age, without a bed, without food, utterly 

comfortless ! It will be observed, perhaps, that the arrest was not 

illegal on account of the hour. I then shall answer that the execution 
of laws should never be accompanied by unnecessary, brutal, odious 
rigor. No jurist is ignorant of that celebrated aphorism : Summum jus, 

summa injuria The Senator was at Mr. Parker's office in person, as 

I had been told by the constable ; and, from certain indications, I under- 
stood that he was there enjoying, unseen, from an adjoining dark room, 
the delightful performance of this act of premeditated atrocity. 

The Bail 

Bail, however, was immediately offered by two generous foreigners. 
Justice Parker had first fixed it at twenty thousand dollars ; but on my 
invoking our Constitution [Art. 8. amend.] against " excessive bails," 
lie kindly reduced it to ten thousand dollars. And, still, was there any 
proportion between a bail of ten thousand dollars and a charge of libel ? 
" The libelled, I was answered, is a Senator of the United States" — 
And is there in our criminal codes any exception in favor of Senators? 
It would seem, then, that civil equality before the law is but a dream 
amongst us ; for bails, if not proportioned both to the nature of the im- 
puted crime, and to the possibility for the accused to procure them, 
would evidently prove a privilege to the wealthy, that is a legal fran- 
chise granted exclusively to pecuniary merit. 

But, a Senator of the United States ! Had I ever contracted a sale, 
a loan, a bargain whatever with a Senator ? Are buying or selling, 
borrowing or lending, on credit or on pledge, with legal or illegal in- 
terest, at public or private sale, for one's account, or for others &c. Sena- 
torial functions? Has not a Senator voluntarily descended from his 
curule chair to a level with all other private individuals, by receiving 
customers at his own dwelling for private money speculations _? Has 
■not such a Senator, by so doing subjected himself to the same judicial 
or extrajudicial treatment due to any other member of the community^ 
according to his good or bad faith in private transactions ? Should he 



76 

aot, then, be properly considered as having virtually renounced all priv- 
ileged consideration among his fellow-citizens ? And, even in the sup- 
position of his having been vsrronged by one of his customers, would he 
have a right first to heap on his head all sorts of mobish insults and de- 
famatory calunmies, and then bring him to law as an offender less to 
his personal rights than to his senatorial dignity, whilst, if an offender 
himself, he is allowed to oppose to his victim the respectability of his 
own person as a member of Congress ? Fie ! such an outrage to human, 
reason will not contaminate, I hope, the glory of the American people. 

Denials of Justice. 

The grand-jury for the September term was formed on the oth of that 
month Fn the presence of the recorder, judge Lynch, and alderman Car- 
Baan and BonnelL 

On the 6th one of my counsel, accompanied by another gentleman 
Mr. J. Attinelli and myself, went to solicit from the police-justice Mr. 
Merritt, a warrant for the arrest of my accuser Mc Roberts, who was 
himself the author and circulator of a most outrageous and calumnious 
libel against me, four printed copies of which I had received from 
Washington: its distribution in the city of New York was, therefore, 
evident. Justice Merritt declined, however, to act. Was he instructed 
to dispense with his official duties ? When the corpus delicti {probatio 
generica) had been exhibited to him, as prima facie evidence (probatio 
specifica) against its author, whose name was affixed to it ; when my 
affidavit assured him that the culprit was about to quit the city and 
State of New York (as he really did) to return to the State of lUinois, 
could he legally refuse the solicited warrant, and thus leave the accused 
at liberty to mock at once at his judicial authority, at my rights and at 
the laws of the State ? Nor ought the indication of Mc Roberts's libel 
having been printed in Washington (an indication which could be ficti- 
tious) be deemed more efficient than the fact of its having been distrib- 
uted in New York, established by the presence of four copies of it, one 
of which was submitted to his own ocular inspection. I find in my 
memorandum book that, in 1827, a warrant for my arrest was obtained 
by an impudent negro-woman from an alderman, colonel Duane in Phil- 
adelphia, for a debt of twenty-five cents, which was not due: and yet 
I was permanently situated in that city, keeping in 5th street a splendid 
house richly furnished, and on the eve of being married. ...!!! 

I went, however, forthwith, with said gentlemen to the District At- 
torney Mr. Whiting, at his office, who likewise refused to receive the 
libel of Mc Roberts to unite it with the other papers relating to my case, 
and transmitted to him by the police justice Parker to be submitted to 
the Grand Jury. There was no question now of instituting before him 
a suit against Mc Roberts. The libel of this Senator was presented to 
the district attorney merely as a defensive document intimately connect- 
ed with the suit already commenced against me, and destined solely to 
give to the Grand Jury a more adequate idea of the true state of things 
— of the true legal importance of the accusation — of the competent or 
incompetent jurisdiction of the State of New York as plaintiff in the 
case &;c. — which was indispensable for the proper solving of the ques- 
tion whether, or not, a " true bill" could legally be found ; so that the 
Grand Jury, struck only by the aivful tenor of my libel against Mc Rob- 



77 

erts, overlooked all other considerations, and unceremoniously found a 
" true bill." On that occasion I observed, in the District Attorney's office> 
a tall gentleman very busy in making dashes and marking passages oil 
a copy of my " Circular to the World," evidently framing the Indict- 
ment which was to be issued against me. I was later apprized that he 
was the counsel of my accuser ! 

The Indictment. 

This document, the basis of the prosecution, drawn up by the accu- 
ser's counsel, adopted under oath by the grand jury, signed under date 
of the 7th of September by its foreman Mr. Mauran, and by the men- 
tioned District Attorney, contains but the quotation of several detached 
and mutilated passages from my " Circular to the World," placed be- 
tween inverted commas, and picked out here and there from the body 
of sixteen printed pages, thus forming a variegated mosaic tableau hav- 
mg, all together, a meaning quite diflferent from what they would ex- 
press, were each of them accompanied by all the statements and expla- 
nations which precede and follow them in the pamphlet itself 

I need not to remark that this manner of criminating a writer, show- 
ing so little candor, is by no means lawful. It is only from the whole 
of a writing that its true object, meaning, spirit, or even degree of cul- 
pability, may be properly ascertained. Nothing like justice can other- 
wise be done. 

I then repectfully object to the legal validity of said Indictment, and 
formally protest against all its possible injurious effects. 

I protest, above all, against the Indictment in what relates to certain 
i'ao-Mg charges not even supported by any quotation from my pamphlet, 
as for instance, my having provoked the accuser Mc Roberts " to com- 
mit 3. breach of the peace with force and arms" &c. a charge, which, 
even in the hypothesis of its being correct, would amount to nothing. To 
express a desire, a readiness, a hope for a partie d' honneur, is neither a 
challenge made nor accepted, and cannot consequently be legally qual- 
ified as subject to penal sanction; for it is the breach of the peace itself, 
and not an alledged provocation to a breach of the peace, that is legally 
imputable. Charges, not taxatively specified in the penal code, and 
grounded solely on arbitrary interpretations, or intentional questions, 
which Divinity alone can solve Avhen not evinced by any exterior human 
action, should never flow from the pen of an honest lawyer, and much 
less of a magistrate, whose sole mission is impartially to secure the 
enapire of law and justice against every actual violation, without the 
slightest regard for litles, functions or the standing of any of the inter- 
ested parties, and thus preserve unimpaired and unsoiled the majesty of 
the people in whose name he acts. 

Were it not so, Senator Mc Roberts would find himself far more im- 
peachable for having provoked ^.breach of the peace\fi\h. force and armsr 
by playing the bully in his " Address" of the 9th of August " To the- 
Public," now before the court, wherein he says : 

Tage 6 — " To save himself (myself) from personal chastisement fee."' 

Page 15 — ♦' This hero (myself) of scurrilous pamphlets never makes 

such a call as would put his (my) courage to the test" &c. — continuing' 

immediately : "It is a pity that such chivalry should bolt before it reach- 



rs 

es the sticking point ! but there would be danger in such rashness ; so 
he (myself) pockets the insults, and revenges himself [myself] by teh 
ling lies" 

Same page — " and kept himself [myself ] concealed in close quarters 
while in Washington, to shelter himself [myself] from what his guilty 
conscience told him he deserved, the cowhide''^ &c. 

Page 16 — " that such a being [myself] should talk oi courage ' &c. 

Are not such truly quarrelsome bravadoes as a threat with personal 
chastisement ; a reproach with my never making a call to put my cour- 
ao"e to the test; the sarcasm of tsxj pocketing the insults, his avowed in- 
sults, and revenging myself by telling lies ; the assertions of my keeping 
concealed ixora his cowhide; the derisory mention of my cowj-a^e &c. — 
are not I repeat, so many and such violent provocations to a breach of the 
peace with force and arms, to be taken notice of, only because they 
come from the sacred and august brains of a Senator ? Is not this, on 
the contrary, one of the cases [the breach of the peace], in which the 
Constitution [ art. 1. sec. 6. s^L] does not exempt from arrest members 
of Congress, even "during their attendance at the Sessions of their res- 
pective Houses ?" 

But the most singular and flagrant contradiction between the Grand 
Jury and the honorable accuser, must now astonish the court and the 
world. 

The Indictment of the 7th September, repeatedly charges me with 
having " provoked Mc Roberts to breaches of the peace with force and 
arms," whilst Mc Roberts himself had reproached me in his "Address" 
of the 9th of the preceding month of August, with cowardly concealing 
myself from a personal chastisement, from his cowhide &c, and with 
pocketing the insults .... and never making a call to put my courage to 
the test? Who is right, the Grand Jury or Mc Roberts ? If the for- 
mer, the latter is an impostor, and an impostor cannot be a witness for 
the State. If the latter, the former, that is the Grand Jury, have com- 
mitted a scandalous error in their Indictment, which could have been 
avoided, had I been heard by them, or had the District Attorney pre- 
sented to them the libellous " Address" of the Senator. Am I, then, 
the provoker or the provoked ? Shall I now be the victim of two asser- 
tions which so flagrantly and so thoroughly destroy each other ? Shall 
I be tried, at the same time, as a timid rabbit and a fierce lion ? 

The inquisitorial mania was, however, pushed so far in the Indict- 
ment that the charges preferred in it appear to result from various libel- 
lous publications, whilst the " Circular to the World" of the S6th of 
July, 1842, is the only one denounced in my case as libellous. Two 
charges are now made in the Indictment, grounded on facts supposed to 
have taken place one month later than the publication of the " Circular 
to the World," that is on the 26th of August ! the day of my arrest ! 
And it is on such anachronisms that a man of honor must be put on 
criminal trial ! 

Still, not enough. The Indictment is not limited, as it should be, to 
qualifying the nature of my pretended libel : it also attacks my personal 
character in the most wanton manner and positive tone, by describing 
me, before preferring any charges, as a " person of a wicked and ma- 
licious MIND AND DISPOSITION." This preliminary qualification was, then, 
evidently inserted in the Indictment not as a consequence of the crime 



79 

imputed to me, but as a premise calculated to give credibility to the 
charges which were successively to be preferred in it ; and this malig- 
nant inversion of argument adds not a little both to the lawless object of 
the accuser, and to the libellous nature of the accusation. And whence 
had the grand-jury obtained such precious information about the wicked' 
ness and the maliciousness of my mind and disposition ? On what ha- 
bitual commissions oi wicked and malicious deeds on my part, is that in- 
formation grounded ? Is in the opinion of the grand-jury a single instance 
of resentment, violently provoked, an evidence of natural malignity of 
mind, and wickedness of disposition ? Is not, with the grand-jury, a no- 
ble and generous sensibility against attacks on personal honor, veracity, 
integrity &c., a virtue, nay a duty of the true gentleman ? Is such a sen- 
sibility a proof of a vicious and criminal heart? An isolated manifesta- 
tion of this sensibility is, therefore, enough, in their opinion, to nullify 
seventy years of unblemished and never questioned respectability of cha- 
racter ! The real or supposed culpability of a work cannot, then, in their 
wisdom, be demonstrated but by denigrating right or wrong the personal 
qualities of the author ! ! ! I must, therefore, be permitted loudly and 
formally to declare that Indictment to be itself, in this respect, a judicial 
calumny, a judicial libel, a judicial preliminary to a judicial assassina- 
tion. It is evidently calculated to make my cause much worse. It is a 
gratuitous aggravation of ihe accusation, a malignant enlargement of the 
supposed enormity of the charge, a fallacious extrinsecal charge, giving 
an additional weight to the fancied guilt. Yet we are told by all the ju- 
rists of the globe that, in criminal prosecutions, innocence rather than 
guilt is to be sought for in an accused person. Shall this tenet of uni- 
versal jurisprudence be disregarded in this classical land of freedom, 
justice and learning ? Is an indictment, amongst us, rather to create 
than to prosecute crime ? Shall here an accused person be compelled to 
struggle less against an interested calumniator than against a grand- 
jury, whose religious impassibility is considered by law as respectable as 
truth itself? But abandoning the indictment to the scrutiny of the pure 
and undefiled conscience of the courts I shall now go on in my legal re- 
marks about the proceedings, on which this singular trial for libel is 
made to rest. 

The True Bill 

From the Indictment just spoken of, a " true bill" sprung up, which 
cannot pass unnoticed. 

To " find a true bill" is a Blackstonian expression meaning, I pre- 
sume, to find a legal cause for a legal prosecution : in other words ; 
legally to admit or reject an accusation. This is the task of the so call- 
ed grand jury. 

Thenatureof this task is far more important than is commonly imag- 
ined. A " true bill" could possibly be found on untrue data, on illusive 
appearances, on crafty, specious, surprising denunciations, in a word, on 
unfounded or exaggerated charges. Then, should the innocence of the 
accused be ultimately acknowledged by the tribunal, to which his trial 
is committed, he shall have innocently endured a protracted imprison- 
ment, ruinous expenses and loss of time, the despair of his family, a dis- 
credit which has perhaps caused to himself and partners an irreparable 
bankruptcy, or such other derangements in his business as will have 



80 

plunged him into indigence and disgrace, or even abridged his days. 
Who and what shall indemnify him or his heirs, for so many and such 
cruel injuries ? This is, however, but too often the case ; and still no 
one attaches the least importance to it. Slave of old routines, every 
one thinks but of his own actual condition, leaving the future and his 
posterity to the care of blind fate. The New York Evening Tattler of 
the 27 ih September ultimo, very a propos exclaimed : 

" The common laAV of lihel is often made the ground of malicious 
prosecutions; and grand-juries, in their one-sided views of criminal 
causes, too often commit grievous injustice in finding bills of indictment 
under this law. A recent instance is that of Dr. Comstock, the cele- 
brated dealer in various medicines, against whom an indictment was 
procured by J. M. Burritt. The case came to trial at the last term of 
the court of Sessions, when the jury acquitted Dr. Comstock without 
leaving their seats. This is one of the several prosecutions which have 
terminated with a like result. Grand-juries cannot be too guarded and 
cautious in the exercise of their functions." (doc. 50). 

The Hon. William Jay, in a recent charge to the Grand Jury of West- 
chester County, told them : " It is right, gentlemen, to remember that 
offenders are to be indicted, as well as convicted, on legal testimony. 
The accused is very properly denied the privilege of making any defence 
bel'ore you ; it is, therefore, peculiarly proper that he should not be put 
to expense, inconvenience and disgrace of an Indictment, except on 
evidence wliich, if not explained or contradicted on the trial, would just- 
ify his conviction — ." 

But how can a Grand Jury be guarded against error when nothing is 
made known to them but the accusation, the admissibility, or inadmis- 
sibility of which can only be shown by explanations given by the accus- 
ed himself or his counsel ? No doubt grand juries are not to enter into 
the merits of the case ; but an unfounded charge, a worthless testimony, 
their own incompetency or want of jurisdiction, an alibi well proved, a 
mistaken indentity of the person, and such other numberless prejudicial 
exceptions could be brought forward, as, by either destroying all prima 
facie evidence, or by placing one of the parties or both out of the au- 
thority of the State, would give no room to further proceedings. 

The District Attorney is not here, as in continental Europe, the advo- 
cate of the law, the impartial expositor of the case : he is the organ, the 
legal agent of the State, that is, of the plaintiff, and then the Grand 
Jury finds a " true bill" on the allegations of one of the parties against 
the other. In France, whose " Code d' instruction criminelle" has 
been adopted by almost all the European powers, neither parties nor wit- 
nesses are allowed to appear before the " Cour royale," making there 
the functions of our grand juries (art. 223 Fr. Code) : but the " procu- 
reur general" (attorney general) makes his report to the " Cour royale" 
within five days from the day, on which he receives the documents 
drawn up by the Police, or " Judge d' instruction," during which time 
" both the civil party and the accused may present all such memorials as 
they think proper (art. 217 Fr. Code) ;" and thus some means, at least, 
are left to the accused to have his exceptions against the admissibility 
of the accusation taken into consideration. 

Far from me be the idea of censuring the law which leaves here no 
means at all to the accused to avert the danger of being undeservedly 



81 

or illegally subjected to a trial, I would only observe that, if he has no 
right to be heard, in person or through a memorial, by the Grand Ju- 
ry, this body is not forbidden, I think, to permit his appearance, and 
even to summon him to appear, before them, if necessary or useful to 
the interest of the law. Under this impression, I attempted to obtain a 
hearing before the Grand Jury of September last by addressing to the 
District Attorney, and the Grand Jurors Mauran, foreman, Andrews 
and Lawrence, the following lines : 

" Should the Grand Jury, in their high justice, deign to grant me a 
" hearing, they would easily perceive, that, first violently provoked, 
" through a letter of the 4th of June, by Mr. Mc Roberts; then publicly 
" assailed by him through a pamphlet of the 9th of August, containing 
*' not merely injurious and vague epithets, but defamatory and utterly 
" calumnious imputations of crimes " wholly NEW in this country ;" 
** and then again, maliciously and atrociously brought hy him to law on 
" the 26th of the same month to avoid, himself, a judicial prosecution, 
" I could reasonably expect that " no true bill" would now be foimd 
" against me, or it ought to be found both against the accused and the 
*' accuser." 

My demand was not granted, nor answered. Yet I could have prov- 
ed, not only the want of all legal action in my accuser, but also the ab- 
solute want of all legal jurisdiction in the State of New York, of which 
the following fourth and last Point of these "■ Instructions to my Coun- 
sel" will exhibit the most incontrovertible demonstration. The " true 
bill" was then found on the 7th of September, and the Indictment sent 
to the Court of General Sessions ! 

Postponement of the Trial. 

Senator Mc Roberts was now anxious to quit New York as quickly 
as possible, not less from his impatience to return to his constituents in 
Illinois singing the hymn of victory over his victim, than because, Con- 
gress having adjourned on the 1st of September, he did not feel al- 
together safe in this city against the possible result of his own calum- 
nious libel, the "Address." He endeavored therefore to have me tried 
by the Court of General Sessions immediately. His counsel grounded 
the reason for such an extraordinary despatch chiefly on the fancied 
fact that the State of Illinois was " literally inundated with my libel, 
the " Circular to the World ;" the which was published in the news- 
papers of this city (doc. 49). My affidavit proved, however, the neces- 
sity of the postponement of the trial until the November term of the Court 
(doc. 35). This term did not suit the Senator. Congress was not to 
meet again before December, and he found it inconvenient for him to 
repair again to New York in November, that is, when, not furnished 
with a Senatorial passport, and still isolated from his scattered col- 
leagues and protectors, he could have exposed himself to some un- 
pleasant adventure. He then insisted, in contradiction with his first 
eagerness, for the December term, and the vmsuspecting court granted 
it. This was, perhaps, the first instance of a longer postponement of tri- 
al being granted than was solicited : an unexampled generosity, which 
by favouring the intrigues and the impunity of a calumniator, pro- 
longed the imprisonment of his victim one month. I leave this episode 
of the drama to the scrutinizing bon sens of the court. 

11 



B2 

Dq^osition of Johnson K. Rogers. 
Tliis was another sjrprismg perfOTmance. JolmscHi K. Rc^rs •was 
the cnlr witness for the prosecaricm, presented by the accusiiig Senator. 
On his'testiinonr was me acdon of the State of 2s ew York, in her as- 
snned character of r-Zci-iri^/f, determined. On his deposition the whole 
]Htx»diire rested, and the trial was to be grounded. But it was pro- 
dent fisr the accuser to keep his mendacious tool at a distance from the 
coart, when my case gnall be called tip in public debate ; and, at the 
same time, it was convenient to hare that wimess crc^j-esamined at a 
pedod w^hen my coonsel could hare not become fully acquainted with 
the part he bail lakea in the affair: to interrogate him on all its particu- 
lais. Mr eoonsd. was smnmcmed to appear cai the lOih of September 
at the oiBce c£ the D^tnet Atttomey, in whose presence Mr. Ece^rs 
made his depoation and was cros-esamined, "his deposition to be 
read, by agreanent of the partis, as eyidoice, upon the trial of the 
ease, sulgect to all legal exceptions fitc" [doc, 36]. The clatise '' by 
agreement ci the parties" was intended, it seems, to throw cfn me the 
ccBseqaeoces erf that prematttre examination, whilst neither had my 
eoDDsel had the time to consult mc, nor had I had that of Tbmfc-ingr of it. 
So tiiat the a-rt was altogether a lawless surprise, cm which I would call 
the most serious attention, cf the cotnx. In fact, the deposition and crcss- 
pTaynmat inn of Bogers were not ooly defectrre and incomplete, but 
neidier was the tchole truth> nca- the pure truth told in thenv as we shall 
see ia the following 4ih Point of these " Instructioiis." 



4th Point 

n^ State of Ne"vr York has to avenge no offence wliateverj on 
my part, to her peace or dignity, and consequently has no le- 
gal jurisdiction in the matter, my arrest having been bnt a 
felse imprisonment. 

I hare demonstrated, ia ie li r:i::: :f ±^5^ Zz^'m-.'.lv:^ :: ~v :: i^- 
selj that the State cf ZSew i ;:'£ :: :li l:". ::iijte^ie:i\; ::;::: :^t i;:::^ 
lawfiilcTlavr"TS? :f :ie :r_r— ?- : ;— tIi:^;.-: II: z: in. _i5":.: t i ; - > 
eedore agai^s zz^i ;: :.:: . - -: ^li :::i: :jie i: ::;:i ;: i: ::ii;I;i:i. 
ant, ha-rin^ I- -'^- ~ -^^ '--- :;-^r^-e-:I.- ;_;;. ^ii .ef: - ; :::zz. ::: 
action in thr z^z '.- ':z-. zz:\ :f 'I_e State :f!New_YoTk. We ~'_ iit 
see that, erei :^ ::.t -''. :-.:::. :; '.I.e S:a:e cf iN^ew Y:ri: ma^^^^ :^e 

against me i£ i-st-i:!::: "^~:^_:i :.e; ^u^::; '.i ^z^ziisiz^-'. :z eii^-'e ".:her 
peace and dignity, the c-ily ia,:: :: :_:: ;_; .r-:ud.on. ri^yt ^.listing, her 
jnrisdktLan cwild not be exercise i ";i: ;y ;- abuse of power. This 
qnestioa being merely legal, the Court of Z: ::= -:. :^ild b« coosulted in 
ease cfit being solved by the Coart of Ses; : - nnfeToiable way. 

"We hare se^i {age 34, that a libd. prof-^rlr -. ::IlTf is but a nco- 
aitiry befwe the lawi unl^s it \ie propagated. Tc -^ . t : : : rint a speech. 



83 



a kw, a nord, a sCTDco, a poem, car any liiemT or pc^lwiark w^ 
ever withom makiEe it known, is dcmg nothkig. andeertemlTo wiato 
TtMlfit. NoinatterhowwiiiedapEodiiramk,orWMma»ils 
com^ printed or manasei^ are, it e^not^Mdal^eaOTedf ag 
law, except when those eope hare heea madeBse o^ fte(^ ifcar*s- 

tribotis or drcnlatwii, fa /«Wc» pnposes. iirui.^i.««. 

For the sme reason die ^aee^diere a real «^Hpo^«efJ^ii« 
printed, bnt not prepagnied, eanoot d^amme ^ jndioal jui^«wb 
asainsl the aathw, and modi less in a eoanl^where the jress e &^ 
and no prerioiE censnre is deoeed or penmtted. Hence, H ™V^ 
/aic/e« nse of an (^aisre writing can con^itBte 4e on^the M 
odIt « the eamtrr where the /airfess nse rf it I*^''^^™^,^y *^ 
plaV thdr swav in the natte-. Indeed, it Jsnot Ae ja^eeijfteM» 

trr'whaethe'&ggeT has been mann&ctMed, bos the J^^. ^ 

Whose toiitoml jm^ictiQBthe mnrdes has be^ papeaated, t^ . -— 
ri^htlr take cognizance <rf the offatce. -nr—jja ^— » 

printed in" New Y«k (doc ^), and &^ r^/^^t^ S,^^^ 
atdr to Washinston. Noi one eojiT «( « ,had yet ^em A^Ji^ m 
this dtv or State' <rf ^ew York, whei^ m tbe aitenwmLrf&eMrf 

AnstEt' last, two unknown pcEOOs cafled on ape at D*|™f»^*°2 
sdibiting s«ne eoiHes « said « Ciicnlar » affe^_m ^y fer ^^"d 
espr^ff thdr deagn to send them to thor fiMndb a *^.£*SJ* 
^^^ Onecfth^who3«itherwae«i.i^^^^&^ 
afterwards i«o^ to be a Mr. B^as, an mtim^ foeod^a^lfc 

Koberts, in whose company he had jnst r^aned l^^,™^™g: 
ton. as confesed bv himself m he d^«^twn (doc. 36); ^ »^ofF 
^ afterwards akertamediobealfc B^^bio^N^^toBrm 
his company to wimess, palmps UDkBO^^kB aadM^^^rn^ 
with^^This Edll ala) supposed to befom Geo^ as B^eisa^ 
wav- spoke in theplaral; bat he is now faiown to be a ]^ta m^ 
cit^. (SmvanswerinarthatloDh-hadatew^p^rf^pa^^^ 
and thai it W^ Boc fi* iale, as it had beai^^ltea^rite^fcr Ae 

citr of Wadiington, where mr .h«™r ^^^ tor^^^^ly * 
Mi Mc Roberts, the soi^isttMt inhabitant rf Ggaga ^e d «*ei *«- fe 

SR<^il his depolrioD, can be te^iSedhyteeM^^ Bg- 

And whoi I answered in the negarire, he aisied i^oa «^]!^^/^>^ 
aae « two co^estrf thefew Ihadinmrpo^saon: to ^-^ lar- 
ceded. xmda 4e Hiq«e^«i Aat b«h cd th<^ TiatoEs wereftom G^ 

ffiaanddear«Et^^TToc ^nd the pam^ "^.^i'^^^ilfS 
^Ms last ^atemait is fWlT confessed by Sogers hm^ m teo^ 

esaminatioa (doc 36) brfoe" the Kstrict Attorney, ^^f^^,^^^ 

" Witnes (Refers) t(W Santangdo d»t he w«ited to i^f™« « 

the pamphleti-Witnes lired in Geosia. and wante d to bay ^ ^m 

send to his friends— Santaigdo reeswerf m araey or cmijii ■ rmm mx 

the pamphlets fee." 

^"Jk^^^l^ie^ [Rogas] that l^had be«. W7^ ire^ 
by Mr. Mc Roberts, and hence he p*iblkfafid die pamphlet Sc 



k 84 

And again : 

" Said Mc Roberts requested witness to call on Santangelo, as abovey 
for the purpose of obtaining proofs that he [Santangelo] had published 
said pamphlet here &c " 

For the purpose of obtaining proofs ! Mc Roberts had, then, no 

proofs of my " Circular to the World" having been published in New- 
York, before he obtained one through his own emissary. Until that mo- 
ment no proof existed, therefore, of its distribution within the State of 
New York. Still that very proof was fraudulently snatched from me 
through an insidious juggling trick, practiced by an avowed tool of my 
own accuser, asserting that he lived i7i Georgia, and that the pamphlet 
was to be sent to his friends there. Rogers pushed the deception still 
farther. The more to impose upon my unsuspecting mind, and to cause 
me to give full credit to his fictitious desire of sending pamphlets to 
Georgia, he contracted for the sum of $6,50 the purchase of 25 copies 
of another pamphlet published here by P***, entitled : " The honor of 
the United States of America under the administration of Tyler, Web- 
ster & Co." assuring me that he would come in the evening to take 
those copies and pay the price agreed upon ; and in his stead I was vis- 
ited in the evening by constable Smith ! The fact of this pretended pur- 
chase was also maliciously concealed in his deposition [doc. 36] and cer- 
tainly to conceal a truth, under an oath to tell the whole truth, is not 
less a falsity and a perjury than to sivear to a lie. The testimony of 
Mr. Bell will, however, satisfy the Court in this particular. 

Another lie of witness Rogers is " my having stated to him that I 
had distributed the pamphlet in this city" — Which pamphlet ? the one 
relating to Mc Roberts, or that of which he had perfidiously contracted 
the purchase ? Mr. Bell will, perhaps, solve also this question. On my 
part I can only remark that I could not have made the confession attri- 
buted to me by Rogers. True, I shall not flatter myself to have well 
understood his English, nor to have made him well comprehend mine : 
but neither would he have made the enquiry " whether I had distri- 
buted the pamphlet against Mc Roberts in this city," without exposing 
himself to the risk of making me know the treacherous object of his 
ensnaring visit, nor could I have made a disclosure as unnecessary as 
untrue at that period, except by way of a foolish boast. At all events, 
far from there being before the Court any judicial proof of that my sup- 
posed extra-judicial confession hitherto destitute of all evidence and ut- 
terly unpresumable, I have plead not guilty, and thus the onus probandi 
rests with the accuser. On the contrary, Rogers himself evinces the 
total absence of all proofs of the distribution of the criminated pamphlet 
in this city, by stating that " he had been requested by Mc Roberts to 
call on Tcvefor the purpose of obtaining proofs of my having published 
it here ;" which plainly means that no distribution of the pamphlet had 
been made, nor was legally ascertained to have been made here, pre- 
vious both to the visit of Rogers and to my arrest. Hence it follows that 
my arrest, solicited, decreed and executed in consequence of a charge 
grounded on factSi of which the accuser himself was the author and the 
prompter, -was toto coelo a false imprisonment; and the State of New 
York, acting in the character oi plaintiff in this cause, has been herself 
made the unconscious tool of a private revenge, of a lawless act, which, 
neither the court, nor the State herself, could sanctify with their appro- 
val, without sanctifying immorality. 



85 

The consequence of these premises is obvious. The State of New 
York has no legal jurisdiction in the matter : 

1st. — Because the small number of three hundred copies of my " Cir- 
cular to the World" could not reasonably be intended for its circulation 
at once in Washington, for which place it had been exclusively writ- 
ten ; in Illinois, which State Mc Roberts's counsel affirmed in open court 
had been " literally inimdated by it ;" and also in this populous city and 
immense State, where, on the other hand, no particular reason existed 
for such a circulation, in exclusion of or in preference to all other States 
of the Union. The " Circular to the World," notwithstanding its bom- 
bastic title, was exclusively intended, I repeat, for Washington, that 
city having been the scene of my quarrel with the noble Senator. 

2dly. — Because the fact of my pamphlet having been subreptitiously 
snatched from my hands, in my own abode, by a secret agent of the ac- 
cuser himself, under the qualification of a resident of Georgia and the 
false pretence of sending it to his friends in that State, all this, far 
from constituting a proof of my intention of offending the State of 
New York, clearly shovps that no such offence had been given to her 
when she excentrically became the plaintiff in the prosecution. Nor 
can the factum of the accuser constitute, on any account vrhatever, the 
culpability of the accused. Nor, again, can the means of conveyance, 
by the mail, or through a private bearer, of a pamphlet from this State 
to another, form an evidence of its distribution in New- York — much less 
for the alleged purpose of grossly, wilfully^ wickedly, and maliciously 
breaking her peace and offending her dignity. Any other view of the 
case would evidently be absurd, and judicial proceedings, verdicts or 
sentences should not, I trust, be grounded on absurdities. 

Is it not astonishing, therefore, that, to avenge the never disturbed 
peace, the never outraged dignity, in one word, to avenge an offence 
never given to the State of New- York (for not one of her inhabitants had 
ever the least notice of the pretended libel previous to my false impris- 
onment) a criminal prosecution should have been instituted on the affida- 
vit of a single individual, a true libeller himself, presenting as corpus de- 
licti a pamphlet provoked by his own offences, and procured through 
the medium of a perfidious intrigue, it being in no way intended for dis- 
tribution within the territorial jurisdiction of this State? Is this what 
is called " Santangelo's trial for libel ? Is such a trial possible in one 
of the most enhghtened and well governed States of the American 
Union ? 

And would not the fact be more astonishing of my being now placed 
by the accuser himself in the necessity of truly distributing and widely 
circulating my pretended libel in defence of my own personal rights, not 
merely in New- York, but throughout both worlds, and in several lang' 
uages ? Will he not become his own defamer by causing this very 
pamphlet, for which I am to be tried, to be spread in New- York, where 
it is now utterly unknown, except to him, the accuser, /rom Illinois, and 
to Rogers, his noble understrapper, /rom Georgia, as if two men, one from 
Georgia, and the other from Illinois, should form and constitute the State 
of New- York ? — a pamphlet declared to be false because it spoke the 
truth; SCANDALOUS because it was scandalously provoked; malicious 
because it was an indispensable vindication of my own honor and char- 
acter ; and defamatoey because of the honest and patriotic purpose of 



86 

putting our National Congress on its guard against such of its members, 
whose morals and conduct, out of its halls, would infallibly defame at 
once its august name, and that of the whole illustrious nation, to which 
I have the honor of belonging, both at home and abroad ? This will be, 
however, the unavoidable consequence of the mistaken position in which 
Mr. Roberts has been placed by his own master-hand, and his revenge- 
ful and codicious feelings — first before the public through calumnious 
productions, and then before a tribunal, whose good faith and religious 
respect for justice he has hoped easily to overreach. Under the triple 
aegis of native countrymen, political partisans and colleagues in Con- 
gress, he has felt certain of a resounding victory over an humble natu- 
ralized citizen, already overcome by years and misfortunes But 

let American honor display its vigor, and his " chateau en Espagne" 
will fall to the ground. — 



SP-286. 



86 



putting our National Congress on its guard against such of its members, 
whose morals and conduct, out of its halls, would infallibly defame at 
once its august name, and that of the whole illustrious nation, to which 
I have the honor of belonging, both at home and abroad ? This will be, 
however, the unavoidable consequence of the mistaken position in which 
Mr. Roberts has been placed by his own mastek-hand, and his revenge- 
ful and codicious feelings — first before the public through calumnious 
productions, and then before a tribunal, whose good faith and religious 
respect for justice he has hoped easily to overreach. Under the triple 
aegis of native countrymen, political partisans and colleagues in Con- 
gress, he has felt certain of a resounding victory over an humble natu- 
ralized citizen, already overcome by years and misfortunes But 

let American honor display its vigor, and his " chateau en Espagne" 
will fall to the ground. — 



ERRATA. 

PAGE. 

43 assert 
47 (doc. 47) 
53 caliber 

14th of June 
55 2st of August 

avail 

Mr. Santangelo 

mark 

63 daily 

64 Robers 

65 guarda 
72 concilia 



CORRiaE. 

assent 

(doc. 45 and 47) 

calibre 

4th of June 

21st of August 

avoid 

Mrs. Santangelo 

marks 

daily (doc. 28) 

Roberts 

guardo 

consilio 



\0^ There are a few other errors, of little or no importance. 



SP-2 86. 












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